Why was this man released? From The Age, with thanks to GMG:
An Australian man arrested on terrorism charges in Lebanon should not have been given bail when facing serious firearms charges in NSW, Police Minister John Watkins said today.Saleh Jamal was arrested on Friday in Lebanon along with a Lebanese Australian, known only as Haitham M, a Lebanese national, a Palestinian and another man whose nationality was unclear.
If found guilty the men could face life in prison.
Prosecutor Jean Fahd yesterday told reporters the men were linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
NSW Police yesterday confirmed they were seeking more information from Lebanese authorities through the Australian Federal Police about Jamal's arrest.
He was wanted for breaching bail conditions while facing charges in connection with the 1998 shooting attack on the Lakemba police station in Sydney's southwest.
He was also facing charges on other firearm-related offences.
Mr Watkins said Jamal had met bail conditions until he fled Australia some time earlier this year.
''I don't believe that this person should have got bail in the first place, but after spending two years in jail awaiting bail, the court did give him bail,'' he told reporters.
''Certain questions need to be asked as to what happened to this person in the months after that and how this person left Australia, presumably with false documents.
''That's a matter I'll be raising with the federal government.''
Mr Watkins said new laws to come into effect on July 1 would ban bail for anyone charged with a serious firearms offence.
He doubted Jamal would ever be brought back to Australia to face charges if found guilty in Lebanon.
''We would like to get this person back here to NSW but ... I believe it will be a very long time before we get him back here because he'll probably be incarcerated in the Middle East,'' Mr Watkins said.
NSW Opposition Leader John Brogden today said he was appalled Jamal could flee the country.
''I'm stunned that somebody who is implicated in shootings, in particularly shooting up a police station in Sydney, is allowed to go free on bail and we now discover that they are a potential terrorist,'' Mr Brogden told reporters.
''This is an appalling situation. We need to not only improve our bail laws, but what we desperately need to do is improve our intelligence so people like this are not getting bail.
''This guy should have been in jail from the outset, rather than now overseas and involved in terrorist activities.''
From Jamal's family, the expected reaction:
''I think that he never did this thing, this is what my feeling, 'cause I know him, I know my son,'' his father Mahmoud Jamal told Channel Nine.
So you wonder WHY this Terrorist is allowed out on BAIL?
Myabe the following story will give you a clue as to the cosy relationship the Australian Labor Party and its Union fund raising arm have with islam and its propensity for bowing and scraping to its every demand.
The ALP Government of Bob Hawke during the first Gulf War through his defence minister Mr Robert Ray (affectionately know by HIS fellow Labor Party collegues as "THE ARAB" due to his ethnic background)Ordered OUR defence Service Personnel to NOT wear their UNIFORMS off base in Australia so as not to OFFEND their muslim supporters.
It was a case of our Defence Force personnel been good enough to die fighting overseas in thier Uniforms but not good enough to wear in the streets of Sydney, lest they upset the muslim population that the ALP cultivated in South Western Sydney (it is now a muslim ghetto) during the reign of the Hawke and Keating Labor Governments.
When Saddam was vice President of Iraq he was a very generous supporter of the Australian Labor Party.
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Obeid denies election involvement
By Samantha Bade
May 31, 2004
LABOR MP Eddie Obeid had denied he was in Lebanon to take part in politicking for mayoral elections, the New South Wales government said today.
But the opposition, angry Mr Obeid had gone to Lebanon citing urgent family reasons, has threatened to withdraw the pair it had granted to Labor for the duration of Mr Obeid's absence.
A pair is when the opposition agrees to forfeit one vote for the duration of a minister's leave.
Mr Obeid has been in his native village of Matrite, in northern Lebanon, organising support in local elections for a Lebanese mayoral candidate named Salami Salami, a Shi'ite Muslim, according to media reports.
Salami is running in local elections against Mr Obeid's niece, Yolla Obeid, a Maronite Christian.
However, NSW Labor Upper House whip Peter Primrose said Mr Obeid phoned him on Friday evening and told him he was not involved in campaigning in Lebanon.
Mr Primrose also said Mr Obeid was expected back in Sydney this coming Saturday.
The Upper House MP had applied in March for urgent family leave to sort out a deceased estate in Lebanon, Mr Primrose said.
Subsequently, the pair was granted by the opposition.
"He applied in March for the pair and it was granted by the opposition and he's been away for six sitting days and he'll be away for another three," Mr Primrose said.
"He has denied he's involved in campaigning and he has confirmed to me that the reasons he originally gave me for his leave are true."
But Mr Primrose left the door open for doubt about Mr Obeid's claims saying: "I'm not in a position to judge whether what he's saying is the truth or not."
The NSW opposition has demanded a written response from the government by 4pm today about Mr Obeid's activities in Lebanon.
"If that response is not given, or we don't believe it's satisfactory, then we will remove the pair from tomorrow's sittings until such time as Eddie Obeid returns to the parliament of NSW," Opposition transport spokesman Michael Gallacher said.
Emergency Services Minister Tony Kelly, who is in charge of Upper House business, earlier said Mr Obeid had assured him he would be back on the first available plane.
AAP
This report appears on NEWS.com.au.
The trouble is the tendrils of Islam, for decades, have been silently creeping into and wrapping themselves around the throats of the countries (ours included) that think they benefit from looking benevolent or from the cheap labour Muslims seem to offer...
But the Muslims do not stay house maids and drivers..They Never assimilate in the host country BUT...They get educated and their children get educated and slowly but surely they become lawyers, court clerks, administrative personally Teachers and elected officals in all levels of Government, education and business WE had better WAKE UP....NOW....
Former Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, is the mentor of the Australian Labor Party leader, Mark Latham. Latham represents Whitlam's old seat in the House of Representatives.
If he wins the forthcoming federal elections, Latham will immediately withdraw Australian forces from the Iraqi theatre.
Whitlam lost office in the 1975 election. The public overwhelmingly rejected his plan to borrow "petro-dollars" from Arab states.
Whitlam failed to regain office in the 1977 election due to the exposure, reportedly written by Rupert Murdoch himself, of the Labor Party's attempt to get election funds from the Iraqi Baathists.
Not suprisingly very little detail is left on the web ... but here a few teasers:
"The first few Caucus meetings were swamped by recriminations over the defeat. In the desperate weeks before 13 December, Whitlam had become caught in events that he should never have touched with a bargepole. Panic-stricken by the shortfall in campaign funds, Party officers had become entangled in the possibility of a huge donation of petrodollars from Iraq. The donation never happened but the facts about its contemplation caused further internal damage ... At the same meeting there was an attempt to have the leadership ballot recommitted on the ground that Whitlam could not win, following revelation of his knowledge of the Iraqi gift affair." (Former MP, Susan Ryan. http://www.unisa.edu.au/hawke/institute/tiger.htm)
"After the Labor Party lost office in 1975 Mr Beazley entered the ’Shadow Cabinet’ as Spokesman on Education and Defence but resigned this position in March 1976 on the question of ignorance and inability to explain "the Iraqi funds affair" to the general public. At the time it was alleged that Mr Whitlam failed to consult with his colleagues on fund raising through Iraqi channels." (http://dtl.lis.curtin.edu.au/F/300313?func=direct&doc_number=000006018¤t_base=ERA01WEB)
How many more of Saddam's skeletons remain in the Australian Labor party's closets? Enough for them to brazenly break the Australian-US alliance?
Do you sappouse it would be a understatement to say that this shows how useless all of Australia's anti-gun laws are!
No, it underlines how left wing the judiciary of Australia are, by not ensuring that these thugs were kept under lock and key.
That is the great, sad joke at the moment in Australia, the police keep catching violent offenders, then the judiciary turns them loose the first chance it gets.
Perhaps it was better that these particular specimens of criminal were caught in Lebanon - hoepfully they will get a more approriate punishment than anything the gutless wonders that sit on the legal benches in Australia would ever impose.
And as for trying such criminals as Hicks and Habib - let's hope they never get to return to Australia to face our castrated version of "justice".
its funny that when i do an illegal u turn the law is all over my ass like a rash!