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Rage as son jailed
By Angela Kamper
February 16, 2007 12:00
CONVICTED terrorist Saleh Jamal accepted the jury's verdict that he shot and injured a man almost 10 years ago very calmly. Unlike his mother
After weeping in the back of the District Court yesterday, Amina Jamal left court only to vent her frustrations at The Daily Telegraph.
Her notorious son was only extradited back to Australia last year. He had been thrown in a Beirut jail after being convicted of terrorism offences.
He had fled to Lebanon on a false passport while on bail during a trial on another matter, only to be arrested there.
Last year, Australian authorities brought him back to face the music, which ended in a guilty verdict yesterday. He and long-time co-accused and friend, triple-killer Michael Kanaan, had denied shooting a man with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm in a Greenacre park in 1998.
The victim was shot in the foot, thigh, buttocks and shoulder.
A jury yesterday found both men guilty. The pair appeared unphased by the verdict and Jamal smiled sympathetically at his mother before being led away.
Dressed in Islamic attire, tears ran down Mrs Jamal's face as the jury foreman read out the guilty verdict.
Thanking her son's lawyers outside court, Mrs Jamal left the building where The Daily Telegraph attempted to capture her emotion.
With her family under intense scrutiny from authorities, it was all too much for Mrs Jamal.
Clearly distressed at the attention, she retaliated by throwing her handbag at photographer John Grainger, which struck him on the head and face causing him to bleed.
Jamal and Kanaan will be sentenced next month.