A control order restricting the movements of a convicted terrorist living in Perth has been extended until March next year, but some conditions have been relaxed, including allowing him to travel to Melbourne to visit his son.
Shayden Thorne spent more than three years in a Victorian jail after pleading guilty to his involvement in a 2016 plot to join Islamic militants in the Philippines.
He was released from prison in March and has since been living in Perth under a strict interim control order issued by the Federal Court.
The order imposed a daily curfew and required Thorne to report to police twice a week, as well as use a police-issued mobile phone, SIM card and email account.
It also banned him from being within 1 kilometre of any Australian international airport or port, and prohibited him from communicating with anyone in Turkey, Iraq, Syria or the Philippines, or from using social media.
A confirmed control order with a number of variations has now been issued by the Federal Court, and will be in place until March 2021.
Thorne allowed Zoom calls
The relaxed conditions include allowing Thorne to travel to Melbourne to visit his son for up to 14 days, on the condition he travel by air and provides the Australian Federal Police with his travel dates, flight booking details, and the address at which he plans to stay.
Thorne is also now permitted to attend two retail outlets near Perth Airport which were previously off limits as part of an exclusion zone under the order.
He is also allowed to use the Zoom internet platform and other computer software for his university studies, the details of which have been redacted.
At the time the interim control order was made in March, the court was told Thorne had refused to renounce his extremist ideology and continued to associate with "persons of security concern" whilst in custody.
The court was told there was "a real risk that in the absence of appropriate controls, Mr Thorne will commit, support or facilitate a terrorist act in Australia or overseas or support or facilitate the engagement in a hostile activity in a foreign country."
Concern at lack of ankle bracelet
In March, WA Attorney-General John Quigley told Parliament that WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson had expressed to him his "utmost concern" that the control orders did not require Thorne to wear a GPS-enabled ankle bracelet at all times.
"We would have offered an ankle bracelet so that for about $100 a day Mr Thorne would have been tracked on live screen with any exclusion zones marked out in red, but that did not happen," Mr Quigley said.
