Sarah Elks;2/12/09
Kevin Rudd’s department is refusing to release parts of a potentially explosive diplomatic cable from New Delhi, believed to detail the Indian government’s concerns over the detention of cleared terror suspect Mohamed Haneef, because of fears it will damage Australia’s international relations. Relations between Australia and India are already strained, with a steady stream of ministers and the Prime Minister travelling to the subcontinent to acknowledge tensions arising from the bashings of Indian students in Australia. The cable in question was sent from Australia’s high commission in New Delhi on July 17, 2007, the day after then immigration minister Kevin Andrews revoked Dr Haneef’s working visa and ordered his continued detention. The day the cable was sent, the Indian government reportedly summoned the high commissioner and insisted Dr Haneef be treated fairly. Dr Haneef, who was working at a Gold Coast hospital when he was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the bombings of the Glasgow airport, and his lawyers launched a Freedom of Information campaign last year, seeking documents regarding his detention and visa cancellation.
Posts Tagged ‘Haneef’
Rudd won’t release Haneef document
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009AFP tight-lipped on Haneef officer
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009Paul Maley; 3/1/09
The Australian Federal Police refuses to say whether action has been taken against a top counter-terrorism officer found by a government-ordered inquiry to have mishandled the Mohamed Haneef investigation. More than a week after the Clarke inquiry found senior AFP agent Ramzi Jabbour “lost objectivity” when reviewing the state of the case against Dr Haneef, the AFP has yet to provide any details about what, if any, action has been taken against the high-ranking officer. Mr Jabbour, formerly the national manager for counter-terrorism, emerged as a chief culprit in the inquiry report compiled by former NSW Supreme Court judge John Clarke and released just two days before Christmas. Mr Clarke found Mr Jabbour, who had on-the-ground carriage of the botched terror investigation, failed to heed the advice of investigating officers that there was insufficient evidence to charge Dr Haneef.
Apologise over Haneef affair, Bligh tells PM
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008Jonathan Pearlman; 30/12/08; (4 Items)
The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, says the Rudd Government should take responsibility for the treatment of Mohamed Haneef and formally apologise. “When a wrong has been done, I don’t think there is any harm in making an apology for that,” Ms Bligh said. “When the apology was done, for example, to the stolen generations, that was the action of a government a long time ago. But it was still something that the Government, on behalf of the people of Australia, took responsibility for.”Ms Bligh, who has previously invited the Indian-born doctor to return to work in Queensland, said he appeared to be “an innocent man who has been treated terribly wrongly”. She said Queensland did not owe an apology because the investigation was headed by the Australian Federal Police.
Grudge match: justice v security
Saturday, December 27th, 200827/12/08
George Brandis and Philip Ruddock have said that Mohamed Haneef does not deserve an apology, and Mr Brandis even said the Government should apologise to Kevin Andrews for trashing his reputation (“I don’t hold grudges”, December 23). Kevin Andrews said the Australian people expected him to act and that he had the courage to do so. This opinion can now be weighed against details of the bungled investigation and ASIO’s advice that Dr Haneef was innocent. The failure to balance the requirements of justice against public security smacks of Dick Cheney’s belief that the US President’s executive authority could be expanded at will to cover the treatment of suspected terrorists and the domestic wire-tapping program. The Haneef case will at least result in a fresh look at the legislation under which the injustice occurred. James Moore Kingsgrove
Clarke never had sufficient investigative authority
Friday, December 26th, 200826/12/08
The Howard government made an art form of creating plausible deniability by using ministerial advisers as the primary conduits of information between ministers, their departments and other agencies. Information—oral and/or written—reached the adviser and from there knowledge about its path to the minister or elsewhere fell into a black hole. The Clarke report into the Haneef affair found no evidence of conspiracy and no evidence of politicial motivation in the actions of Philip Ruddock and Kevin Andrews. Yet the report cannot explain the motivation behind Andrews’s mystifying decision to cancel Mohamed Haneef’s visa, nor for Ruddock’s troubling failure to scrutinise and reconcile conflicting evidence from two agencies under his ministerial control, and the inquiry sheds no light at all on the role of the ultimate political tactician, John Howard.
But two individuals who could have shed light on these matters — Andrews’s chief-of-staff, Michael Toby, and Howard’s senior adviser, Jamie Fox — either refused to give evidence or were denied permission to do so by the former government. In this case, no evidence is not evidence of innocence. The inquiry’s inability to penetrate the protective shield provided by Howard government advisers is evidence that it never had the investigative authority to reveal if and how our political practitioners interfered with the administration of justice. Greg Poropat; New Farm, Qld
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A dangerous web
Friday, December 26th, 2008Michelle Grattan; 26/12/08
It might sound odd to say so, but this week’s report on the Haneef affair is reassuring as well as alarming. It would have been far worse if former judge John Clarke had found that then immigration minister Kevin Andrews had cancelled Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef’s visa for cynical political reasons, under pressure from John Howard. The 2007 election was looming; the government was in trouble, and that’s what many people thought happened. In his exhaustive review, Clarke concluded otherwise, saying Andrews’ mistakes came not from political calculation or pressure but from incompetence — failure to get to the bottom of things. (He did add the tantalising word “mystifying” in relation to the timing of the visa’s cancellation.) Of course, this is of no comfort to Haneef, who has suffered permanent scars that cannot be entirely removed even by a report that finds everybody else rather than him at fault. But it is a small positive ray for our political system. Overwhelmingly, however, people will concentrate on the indictments in this report — and rightly.
Evidence withheld that could have set Haneef free
Saturday, December 6th, 2008David Marr; 6/12/08; (2 Items)
Australian Federal Police withheld evidence that might have freed Dr Mohamed Haneef. Though they concede the material, if genuine, let Dr Haneef off the hook, it was never shown to the attorney-general, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions or the magistrate supervising the Gold Coast doctor’s detention in the Brisbane watchhouse last year. Dr Haneef was suspected of aiding a British terrorist cell by leaving an old SIM card with his cousin Dr Sabeel Ahmed in 2006. But on the face of it, the material Scotland Yard provided the AFP proved that Dr Ahmed was not a member of the cell that tried and failed in June last year to detonate car bombs in London and carrying out an attack on Glasgow airport. In the midst of those events, Dr Ahmed’s brother Kafeel left a message confessing that he was engaged on violent jihad: “This is the ‘project’ that I was working on for some time now … Every thing else was a lie! And I hope you can all forgive me for being such a good liar!! It was necessary.”
AFP reversal on Haneef
Monday, November 17th, 2008Paul Maley; 17/11/08
The Australian Federal Police appears to have told the Howard government they were prepared to use tough new terror laws to detain Mohamed Haneef, despite concluding days earlier there was no basis for their use. Documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws suggest an extraordinary disconnect existed between what the AFP was telling the government it would do and what it knew was legally possible. The documents formed the basis of a speech delivered by Dr Haneef’s barrister, Stephen Keim, SC, in Sydney on Saturday. They also show ASIO’s assessment of Dr Haneef – that he posed no security threat – was widely conveyed throughout government, including to the senior Immigration Department official who prepared the dossier used bythen immigration minister Kevin Andrews to cancel Dr Haneef’s visa.
AFP ‘knew of plan to revoke Mohamed Haneef’s visa’
Saturday, November 1st, 2008Paul Maley; 1/11/08
New documents suggest the Australian Federal Police were told Mohamed Haneef’s visa was to be revoked before immigration minister Kevin Andrews officially took the decision. In a speech delivered in Sydney last night, Dr Haneef’s barrister, Stephen Keim SC, said a forensic examination of the official record exposed as a “nonsense” Mr Andrew’s claim that he only decided to cancel Dr Haneef’s visa on the day it was revoked. “We are talking about a plan by the Howard government and relevant government agencies to cancel Dr Haneef’s visa if he is not charged with any offence and he is not assessed as a security risk,” Mr Keim told the NSW Council of Civil Liberties last night.
Alexander Downer hoped Mohamed Haneef would leave Australia
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008Paul Maley; 28/10/08; (2 Items)
The Howard government hoped Mohamed Haneef would “see the writing on the wall” and leave Australia voluntarily, fearing the cancellation of his visa would provoke a diplomatic incident with India. Documents obtained under freedom of information laws and released yesterday by Dr Haneef’s legal team, reveal the concern the terrorism case generated at the highest level of the Howard government. An email from a senior Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade official, Zena Armstrong, written on July 12 last year – 10 days after Dr Haneef was arrested – refers to discussions involving the Australian high commissioner in India, John McCarthy, foreign minister Alexander Downer and defence minister Brendan Nelson, who was visiting India as the crisis unfolded. According to Ms Armstrong, Mr McCarthy was concerned that revoking Dr Haneef’s visa and deporting him to his native India, would play “very badly” in New Delhi.
Voyage to the darkest side for Mamdouh Habib
Saturday, October 25th, 2008Natalie O’Brien; 25/10/08; (2 Items)
Former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib is telling his version of the events in 2001 that he says led to his detention as an alleged Australian terrorist: He was stretched out on the bed in his Dubai hotel room watching television when there was a knock at the door. In the doorway, with an Emirati police officer, were two men who identified themselves as ASIO agents before pushing their way into his room. According to Habib, the two spooks knew he was heading to Pakistan and they asked him to spy for them. “They pulled out a bundle of photos to show me. I didn’t want to hear this stuff or be involved but they wouldn’t stop,” says Habib, who was to end up in the US prison in Cuba accused of terrorism. The Australian Government has long disputed many of Habib’s claims, which appear in great detail in his new book My Story: The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn’t, published this week.
Joseph ‘Jack’ Thomas cleared of terror charge
Friday, October 24th, 2008Milanda Rout; 24/10/08; (5 Items)
The bizarre life Joseph Terrence Thomas has led for the past 5 1/2 years while being prosecuted by Australian law-enforcement agencies can be best summed up by his latest employment. While on bail awaiting retrial for accepting funds from a terrorist organisation, the 35-year-old has been delivering milk to a number of Melbourne offices, including those occupied by prosecutors and police. It seemed that while the authorities went after Thomas, who trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan, in the courtroom and argued to a jury that he had knowingly received funds from al-Qa’ida, they were still happy enough to take his daily deliveries of milk from him. And yesterday a Supreme Court jury did not buy the case put forward by the prosecution – largely based on an interview Thomas gave to the ABC’s Four Corners – that he had taken $US3500 in cash and an airplane ticket from senior al-Qa’ida member Khaled bin Attash in January 2003.
Andrews to front inquiry
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008Paul Maley; 15/10/08
More than a year after he cancelled Mohamed Haneef’s work visa, effectively placing the Indian doctor in immigration detention, former Howard minister Kevin Andrews will today front the Clarke inquiry to explain his actions. Mr Andrews, who as immigration minister cancelled Dr Haneef’s visa shortly after he was granted bail by a Brisbane court, will be the last key witness to give evidence before the inquiry, which is scheduled to report to the Rudd Government on November 14. A spokeswoman for the inquiry said Mr Andrews would probably be required for half a day. Lawyers for Dr Haneef have been critical of the delay in obtaining a statement from Mr Andrews, saying it limited the inquiry’s ability to cross-check his evidence with information already on the record.
Concern over anti-terrorism laws
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008David Marr; 23/9/08
The Haneef inquiry emerged briefly into daylight yesterday to hear the former chief justice Sir Gerard Brennan express concern that security laws are causing “too great an erosion of our fundamental rights”.Sir Gerard was speaking at a forum examining what he called the “novel” and “drastic” anti-terrorism laws used to detain and interrogate the Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef for 12 days in July last year. Dr Haneef was charged with terrorism offences but these charges were later dropped. A former judge, John Clarke, QC, is conducting an inquiry into the fiasco.
Stand down, lawyers tell Keelty
Monday, September 1st, 20081/9/09
The Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, should stand down pending the outcome of the Clarke Inquiry into the handling of the Haneef case, the Australian Lawyers Alliance said yesterday. Its national president, Clara Davies, said the AFP declaration that terrorism suspect Mohamed Haneef was “no longer a person of interest”, while welcome, was disturbing. Dr Haneef had been forced to endure more than 12 months of false accusation after his arrest at Brisbane Airport on July 2, 2007 when his mobile phone SIM card was linked to botched terrorism attacks in Britain.
Police failed to act on Mohamed Haneef lawyer request
Saturday, July 26th, 2008Paul Maley; 26/7/08
Australian Federal Police withheld documents from Mohamed Haneef’s legal team, including an interview transcript revealing officers repeatedly ignored the Indian-born doctor’s indications he wanted a lawyer in the moments after his arrest at Brisbane airport. Dr Haneef’s legal team claim the AFP could have broken the law by failing to provide five records of interview taken as police were arresting Dr Haneef on July 2 last year, and in the first few days of his 25-day detention. They accuse AFP officers of failing to provide Dr Haneef with a lawyer despite repeated indications from Dr Haneef that he wanted one present. Dr Haneef was arrested in Brisbane after police linked his mobile phone SIM card to botched terror attacks in Britain.
