The Hindu : National : Australia’s AG defends detention of Haneef

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Monday, Jul 09, 2007
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Australia’s AG defends detention of Haneef

P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE: Australia’s Attorney General Philip Ruddock has justified the continued detention of Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef in Brisbane in connection with the ongoing investigations of the latest terror plots in the United Kingdom.

There was no official word on the charges, if any, against Dr. Haneef, who on Sunday completed almost a week in custody under Australia’s counter-terrorism laws. He was “taken into custody” at the Brisbane airport last Monday, and Australian authorities have insisted that he was not formally arrested.

Mr. Ruddock said “the distinguishing factor in relation to Dr. Haneef from the others,” who have been interrogated in the same case, “was that he was intent on leaving Australia” at the time he was intercepted at the Brisbane airport.

“He had a one-way ticket with him,” Mr. Ruddock emphasised.

“An oddity”

Dr. Haneef, working in Queensland, was believed to be on his way to India on “emergency leave,” and a one-way ticket in such circumstances is treated by the Australian police as an oddity.

Several other Indian doctors across Australia were questioned by the police in the past week but not in the same way as Dr. Haneef is. The authorities emphasised that not all of them were regarded as suspects. The objective was to unravel the “links” that Dr. Haneef might have had. A number of search warrants were executed in relation to these other doctors as well.

More raids

The investigators are understood to have carried out more raids on Sunday. Mr. Ruddock said: “We need to be conscious that there may be groups of professionals here [in Australia] who pose a risk.”

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the Government would set in place a computerised system with an “extraordinary additional capacity” to screen “the background of the people who seek to come to Australia.”

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