A Pakistan-born medical student, arrested in Australia for training with terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba has failed to have his case quashed.
23-year-old Izhar Ul Haque applied in the New South Wales Supreme Court to have the charge against him dropped, arguing that Australia did not have the power to legislate on criminal acts committed overseas.
Haque has pleaded not guilty to intentionally receiving combat training from LeT in Pakistan. He was to have gone on trial last year, the first Australian charged with training with a terror organisation, but the trail was postponed after his lawyers appealed the charges against him.
Justice Virginia Bell rejected the former Sydney medical student's bid to have his trial permanently stayed, saying it was within Australia's constitutional powers to bring charges against him, AAP news agency said.
"In this matter I decline to grant the relief sought," Justice Bell told the court, adding, "I accept the commonwealth's submission that there is binding authority that a law, which that operates on conduct that is geographically external to Australia, is necessarily a law with respect to external affairs within ... the constitution."
"It follows that the challenge of the accused to the commonwealth Parliament's power to create an offence that may be committed by a foreigner against a foreigner in a foreign country remote geographically from and of no particular interest to Australia, must be rejected," Bell said.
Outside the court, Ul Haque's lawyer Adam Houda said he was disappointed with the result. "We disagree with the decision and there will be an appeal," Houda said.
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