Australian courts back tough anti-terror laws

Canberra, Aug 2: Australia's highest court backed the nation's tough anti-terror laws today, ruling police had the right to impose strict limits on the movements of people suspected of links to militant organisations.

In a 5-2 ruling, Australia's High Court ruled against terrorism suspect Joseph Terrence Thomas, who had challenged a government control order that limited his movements and banned him from making contact with some people.

The ruling is a victory for the government. Anti-terrorism laws have been progressively tightened since the September 11, 2001, airliner attacks on the United States.

''What it does is puts beyond doubt the counter-terrorism laws that we implemented,'' Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said.

The court's decision to uphold the laws comes as the government and police face political attacks over their handling of the case against an Indian doctor, charged but then freed over links to a failed British car bomb plot.

Thomas, a Muslim convert known as ''Jihad Jack'' in the Australian media, was jailed for five years in April 2006 on charges of receiving money and a plane ticket from Al Qaeda after training with Osama bin Laden's network in Afghanistan in 2001.

He was set free in late 2006 after winning an appeal against his conviction, although the courts have ordered him to face a re-trial, which has yet to begin.

Thomas has been jailed and released three times since his capture in Pakistan in 2002. He has pleaded not guilty to receiving funds from an Australian government-listed terrorist organisation and possessing a fake Australian passport.

Thomas asked the High Court to overturn a government-imposed control order, which sets a midnight to 5 am curfew, bans him from contacting certain people and forces him to report to police three times a week.

But the High Court ruled the government had the constitutional power to issue the control order under its defence powers, ruling the powers were not limited to external threats or war between nations.

Australia, a staunch US ally, has never suffered a major peace-time attack on home soil, although 92 Australians were among more than 220 people killed in bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002 and 2005.

Reuters>