The Hindu : Front Page : More Indian doctors quizzed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 07, 2007
ePaper

Front Page

Front Page

More Indian doctors quizzed

P.S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE: Australian authorities on Friday questioned five more Indian medical professionals, even as interrogation of Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef continued as part of the investigations into the recent “terror plots” in the United Kingdom.

Describing the investigations a “complex” exercise, a top Australian security official said: “The links to the United Kingdom,” now being established in Australia, “are becoming more concrete.”

No charges, however, have been laid against any of those being questioned. Dr. Haneef, whose detention was extended on Thursday night for four days, continued to be interrogated in Brisbane, where he was held as he was about to take a flight on Monday.

Of the other five Indians, four were reportedly quizzed in Western Australia and one in Sydney. The authorities are understood to have considered these persons to be of the same background as Dr. Haneef. An Australian official said the purpose of “trying to talk” to these persons “at the moment is to gather evidence or gather information about the network, about who is linked to who; and whether, in fact, anybody has committed any criminal offence.”

Besides probing the latest “terror plots” in the U.K., the Australian investigators are understood to be keen to know whether any Al-Qaeda “sleeper cells” exist in Australia.

Jeep driver a Lebanese, says U.S. paper

PTI reports from New York:

The New York Times on Friday reported that the man who tried to crash a jeep laden with crude bombs into the Glasgow airport was a Lebanese employed in a hospital in that city. The report said that staff at Glasgow’s Royal Alexan dra Hospital had identified him as Lebanese physician Khalid Ahmed employed there. He is now being treated for severe burns suffered when the vehicle caught fire.

Investigators in London are trying to determine whether Bilal Abdullah and Ahmed had taken part in attempted bombings in the British capital and whether they were the ringleaders of a cell containing all the suspects.

As police questioned eight suspects — described in the report as six from the Middle East and two Indians — British intelligence agencies focussed on their international links, an intelligence official and a government official were quoted as saying by the paper. MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, said on its website that some Britons had joined the Iraqi insurgency. “In the longer term, it is possible that they may later return to the U.K. and consider mounting attacks here,” it said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page