Jihad Jack's JI link: six words in a hotel [Aussie terror camp graduate]

JACK THOMAS, the first Australian to be constrained by a counter-terrorism control order, has emphatically denied claims he travelled overseas with convicted terrorist Jack Roche or that he was close to the extremist Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.

Mr Thomas told the Herald yesterday that he met Bashir and Roche once only, when he and his wife, Maryati, were returning with a tour group from a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. He said he exchanged pleasantries with Roche but could not speak to Bashir because he did not understand Indonesian.

"Bashir came to the hotel … with Jack Roche. As far as I knew, he was coming to visit the people in the hotel who had been on the haj," Thomas said. "In half an hour I probably spoke half a dozen words to him."

His comments came as his lawyer challenged the Federal Government to explain why it had applied the order on Thomas when several Australians who trained in overseas terrorist camps had not been subjected to similar orders.

Mr Thomas's lawyer, Rob Stary, said a Melbourne man who trained alongside him in Afghanistan, and who also met Osama bin Laden, had escaped being issued with a control order.

"People in Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast have trained in camps in Afghanistan. The Government should be challenged on who those people are," Mr Stary said.

Control orders can be issued if a court is satisfied it will substantially assist in preventing a terrorist act or if the subject has received training from a listed terrorist organisation.

Mr Thomas defended his wife, who is alleged to have led him into contacts with the leader of the extremist Jemaah Islamiah group in Indonesia. He said too much had been made of a supposed link between his wife and Bashir and that he had been mistaken when he previously said his wife attended school with a woman who became Bashir's wife.

"She knew a friend of the woman who became the wife of Bashir. I have stuck my foot in my mouth by saying anything at all about it, because I had no idea, really."

Meanwhile, the director of the International Crisis Group, Sidney Jones, the foremost expert on Jemaah Islamiah, said there was no evidence that Thomas's wife was a senior figure in the terrorist network.

Ms Jones was questioned about reports that Thomas's wife attended school with the daughter of the co-founder of Bashir's Islamic school.

Ms Jones said she suspected the reports might have confused the friend who reportedly later married Bashir with another woman of the same surname.

Mr Thomas's name had never emerged during her extensive inquiries into JI, Ms Jones said. Neither had his wife's. "If she was a major player I think I would have come across her," Ms Jones said.

Thomas confirmed that he married his wife within hours of meeting her for the first time. But he said they had written to each other for several months, and exchanged photographs before their initial meeting.

"People in Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast have trained in camps in Afghanistan. The Government should be challenged on who those people are," Mr Stary said.

Jack Thomas outside Melbourne Magistrates Court after his release yesterday. Photo: Eddie Jim

He makes my skin crawl...

This is a little of what Wikipedia has to say about him:

The convictions of Mr. Thomas for the terrorist offence and the offence related to passport manipulation demonstrate the seriousness with which these issues are dealt with by the law and highlights the consequences of becoming involved in these activities".[1]

This was in relation to his travels to Pakistan and Afghanistan, after he married and CONVERTED TO ISLAM. Thomas left Australia for Pakistan on March 23, 2001, and returned home on June 6, 2003. Since his arrest, Thomas has been referred to in the media as "Jihad Jack". When he converted to Islam the self described Aussie battler took on the name Jihad, Arabic for struggle.[

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