Al-Qaeda Sue ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’

Picture the naughty terrorist men of Al-Qaeda. What do you think they get up as to they huddle together in their Afghan caves? Waffle on about the destruction of Western civilisation, perhaps? Share their top-ten infidel-beheading tactics?

Wrong. Apparently they all sit around and watch Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Not the Chris Tarrant version, obviously. Even international terrorists have some sense of taste.

They much prefer to get all ‘down under with Allah’ and fix their gazes on the Australian version. Which is where our story begins…

On an episode broadcast earlier this week, an Aussie contestant was asked the following question: "Suspected of associating with the terror network al-Qaeda, Joseph Terrence Thomas, was dubbed what? a) Jihad Jack; b) Joe Blow; c) Terror Terry; or d) Thomas the Tank Buster."

The answer - if you’re interested - is Jihad Jack. Jihad Jack who also happens to be distinctly unamused at all of this.

Joseph Terrence Thomas - awaiting trial for charges of receiving financial support from al-Qaeda, providing it
with resources to help carry out a terrorist attack, and having a false
passport - has seen fit to drag his lawyer on the case. Legal eagle Rob Stary - celebrity flickering in his eyes like some madcap Tex Avery animation - has stepped up to the media podium and announced: "Personally, I think it’s completely inappropriate to trivialise the matter when court proceedings are well and truly in place."

Stary even went on to argue that the broadcast could seriously "prejudice his client’s trial." To which a baffled network shrugged its shoulders and said "it [the show] didn’t refer to what Jack Thomas might have done, more so what he has been dubbed." Subtext: aren’t all people involved in this just being a teeny bit pathetic?

Let’s be serious about this: why are we wasting time blathering on about global terrorist networks when there are more important things happening in the world, like Abi Titmuss sharing a Love Shack with Lee Sharpe? Let’s get our priorities back in order, people.

[story by C J Davies]