ABC puts 'Jihad Jack' interview back on net
ABC lawyers have backflipped on their advice that Four Corners staff remove an interview with Jihad Thomas from the broadcaster's website.
ABC lawyers have backflipped on their advice that Four Corners staff remove an interview with Jihad Thomas from the broadcaster's website.
Four Corners executive producer Bruce Belsham said he was pleased the interview, conducted by journalist Sally Neighbour with Mr Thomas - who chose the name Jihad when he converted to Islam - was back online.
The ABC's initial legal advice was that the transcript would be central evidence to any retrial and continued publication may be prejudicial.
The Australian subsequently published the transcript of the Four Corners episode, "The Convert", on its website.
"The Thomas interview has been widely republished by others and ABC legal advice has been reviewed and changed," Mr Belsham said yesterday. "Four Corners welcomes this because we like our reporting to be publicly available."
Mr Belsham made the comments in a letter to The Australian in which he rejected the suggestion that there was an "ulterior motive" in the ABC removing the Thomas transcript from its website.
Mr Thomas's conviction for accepting funds from al-Qa'ida and falsifying his passport was quashed by the Victorian Court of Appeal last month on the grounds that an interview he gave the Australian Federal Police was involuntary and therefore inadmissable.
He is now subject to an interim control order.
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