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Friday, Jul 13, 2007
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Haneef’s detention criticised

P.S. Suryanarayana

— Photo: AP/UBDT Engineering College

A different life: Kafeel Ahmed (centre), the Indian engineer who recently attempted to ram a Jeep into the Glasgow airport, is seen with some batchmates at the UBDT Engineering College in Davangere in this undated photo. Kafeel is now fighting for his life in a Scottish hospital after having suffered 90 per cent burns.

SINGAPORE: Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef’s prolonged detention in Brisbane, in the absence of any charges against him under counter-terrorism laws, came in for stinging criticism from Australia’s Law Council on Thursday.

Charactering Dr. Haneef’s situation as “indefinite detention by any other name,” Council president Tim Bugg, in a statement released from Canberra, said “no one can offer a deadline when he will be either charged or released.”

With the Australian Federal Police asking for judicial extensions of his detention and with the court-hearing now adjourned until Friday, Dr. Haneef was “effectively … in a state of suspended animation,” Mr. Bugg pointed out.

"Dead time”

Criticising the provision of “dead time” under the laws passed in 2004, Mr. Bugg said the “system has simply introduced indefinite detention by stealth.”

Dr. Haneef’s is the first real “test case” under the counter-terror laws with such a system, according to other independent observers in Australia. The “dead time,” used to gather evidence or fine-tune investigative procedures, can prolong detentions even when no interrogation of a suspect takes place.

Diplomatic sources in Australia said the comments by the Law Council and by human rights and civil rights groups had turned the international spotlight on Dr. Haneef’s situation.

As he spent the tenth day in detention, at least one more search warrant was reported to have been executed, but details were not immediately available.

Not expected

On a different but related front, Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, now in India on a visit, said “this particular issue [concerning Dr. Haneef], which perhaps none of us really expected, will require us, perhaps, to develop some sort of a mutual arrangement.”

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