By Mike Head
Source: The World Socialist Website
URL: [link]
Date: September 27, 2008


Australia’s largest and most protracted terrorist trial ended with distinctly mixed results last week in Melbourne. After a Victorian Supreme Court trial that ran for 115 days, the nine women and three men on the jury took nearly four weeks to reach their verdicts. While they found seven of the twelve defendants guilty of terrorist-related offences, they acquitted four others of all charges and were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on another, who now faces a lengthy re-trial.

Those acquitted walked free after nearly three years in maximum security prison cells; the lawyers for those convicted have indicated that they will almost certainly appeal. No sentencing has yet occurred, but if the convictions were upheld, they could be jailed for between 10 and 50 years.

The trial became a major test case for the so-called “war on terror” and the draconian anti-terrorist legislation introduced by the former Howard government from 2002, with the Labor Party’s support. Most of the 12 Muslim men on trial were arrested in highly-publicised police raids in November 2005, just days after then prime minister John Howard declared there was an imminent terrorist threat and recalled the Senate for an emergency session to push through far-reaching amendments to the anti-terrorism laws.

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