R v Thomas

R v Thomas
Court	Court of Appeal of Victoria
Full case name	The Queen v Joseph Terrence Thomas
Decided	18 August 2006
Citation(s)	[2006] VSCA 166
Case history
Prior action(s)	DPP v Thomas [2006] VSC 120 (trial)
Subsequent action(s)	R v Thomas (No 2) [2006] VSCA 166 (adjournment of further proceedings); R v Thomas (No 3) [2006] VSCA 300 (order for retrial)
Case opinions
the admissions made in the 8 March 2003 interview were not made voluntarily, and were not admissible as evidence (per curiam) alternatively, "it would be contrary to public policy for this Court to condone what was a knowing non-compliance with the legal protection afforded by Australian law" (per curiam)
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Maxwell P, Buchanan & Vincent JJA

R v Thomas was an Australian court case decided in the Victorian Court of Appeal on 18 August 2006. It concerned the conviction in February 2006 of Joseph Thomas (nicknamed "Jihad Jack" in the media) on terrorism-related charges, specifically receiving funds from Al Qaeda. The appeal revolved around the admissibility of a confession Thomas made during an interrogation in Pakistan in 2003. The court found that the evidence, which was crucial to Thomas' convictions, was inadmissible because it had not been given voluntarily. The court accordingly quashed his convictions, but after further hearings ordered on 20 December 2006 that he be retried rather than acquitted.

Joseph Thomas is an Australian citizen. On 23 March 2001 he left Australia and travelled by air to Pakistan, crossing into Afghanistan by land. For the next three months, he was alleged to have trained at the Al Farouq training camp near the city of Kandahar, before travelling to Kabul in July 2001. Over the next eighteen months or so, Thomas stayed in various Al Qaeda safe houses, and is alleged to have made contact with several Al Qaeda officials.

On 4 January 2003, Thomas was apprehended by Pakistani immigration officials at an airport in the city of Karachi, and taken into custody. Thomas had with him items including an Australian-issue passport, an airline ticket for travel to Indonesia, and about $ 3,800 in cash. The passport, issued on 19 May 1993, had been tampered with, for the intention of concealing the details of Thomas' movements after his departure from Australia in 2001. He was blindfolded, and driven to an unknown location, where he was questioned for about two hours by two Pakistani men and two Americans.

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