By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
An Australian man who spent time at an al-Qaida training camp and met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan was sentenced Wednesday to nine months in prison but freed because of time already served.
Joseph Thomas, a 35-year-old Muslim convert dubbed "Jihad Jack" by the Australian media, last week was found innocent at a retrial of receiving funds from a terrorist group but guilty of falsifying his passport.
Thomas concedes he went to Afghanistan in early 2001 with the intention of helping the hardline Islamist Taliban regime but says he changed his mind after the Sept. 11 attacks and has since renounced extremism.
The trial was the second time Thomas faced the charges.
He was initially convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for accepting cash and a plane ticket from a man prosecutors said was a senior al-Qaida figure in Pakistan, and on a passport tampering charge.
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