Australian to appeal conviction for receiving al Qaeda funds News
Australian to appeal conviction for receiving al Qaeda funds

[JURIST] An Australian man plans to appeal his conviction for receiving money and a plane ticket from an Osama bin Laden associate, his lawyer said Monday. Joseph Terrence Thomas [advocacy website; ABC TV report] was found guilty by a jury [BBC report] over the weekend for receiving $3,500 from Khaled bin Attash [Wikipedia profile], a senior al Qaeda member, after training with the terrorist group in Afghanistan in 2002. Thomas was also found guilty of carrying a fake passport, but was acquitted on two charges that he willingly provided resources and support to al Qaeda.

Thomas claims he was threatened during an interrogation by American and Pakistani intelligence agents in 2003, and that he was later questioned by Australian police without being given access to a lawyer. His lawyers contend that his trial was being used as an example to show that Australian police are "tough on terrorism" since he was the first convicted under new anti-terror laws passed by Australia in 2002. Thomas will have a pre-sentencing hearing on Thursday in Melbourne. Reuters has more. Anthony Dowsley of the Herald Sun has local coverage.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.