Australia charges alleged al-Qaida associate

An alleged terror fundraiser charged with siphoning money to and from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network to help bankroll attacks appeared in an Australian court today.

Joseph Terrence Thomas, 31, a former taxi driver from Melbourne, was charged with receiving al-Qaida funds between November 2002 and January 2003, in Karachi, Pakistan, and elsewhere.

A second charge alleges that between July 2002 and January 2003, also in Karachi, he provided funds to help al-Qaida prepare, plan or assist in a terrorist act. No specific terror attack he may have helped fund was given.

He faces a maximum penalty of 25 years’ imprisonment for each of the terror charges if convicted.

Thomas was not required to enter pleas at his brief appearance in Melbourne Magistrates Court and he was remanded until a further hearing on February 10 next year.

Bearded and wearing a black and white striped collarless shirt, Thomas rested his head against the front of the dock but made no comment during the brief hearing.

Thomas returned to Australia in June after being held in Pakistan for six months on suspicion of having terrorist connections. He was not charged with any offence by Pakistani authorities.

He is the first man in Australia to be charged with getting funds from a terrorist organisation – part of new anti-terror laws passed in 2002, federal police said.

Counterterrorism officers arrested him in Melbourne earlier today, police said in a statement.

He was charged under sweeping counterterrorism legislation passed in 2002, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

He also was charged with having a fake passport, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment or a AUS5,000 (€3,000) fine.

Police said in a statement before his court appearance that Thomas “had close association with known al-Qaida members”. The statement did not elaborate.

Australia’s new laws netted their first terror convict in May when Jack Roche, a British-born Muslim convert, pleaded guilty to conspiring to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra. The plot was never carried out.