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Tell the truth in Haneef case: Queensland Premier

P.S. Suryanarayana

“Case is undermining public confidence”

SINGAPORE: Australia’s federal authorities on Saturday came under spiralling criticism at home over the continued pre-trial detention of the Brisbane-based Indian doctor, Mohammed Haneef, on terror charges.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie called upon the federal authorities to “tell the Australian people the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” This was “the only way” to meet the situation in which the case “now is undermining public confidence in the [country’s new] terrorism laws.”

Mr. Beattie’s intervention in the ongoing public debate acquires much importance, given that Dr. Haneef is now lodged in a solitary cell in Queensland.

The Australian legal fraternity’s rising demand for a review of the case is propelled by reports from the United Kingdom, which suggest that Dr. Haneef’s mobile phone SIM card, the centrepiece in the prosecution’s case against him, could not at all be linked to the London and Glasgow terror plots.

Other factors diminishing the credibility of the case are some “discrepancies” between the charge-sheet and a leaked transcript of the Australian Federal Police’s first of two “interviews” with Dr. Haneef. One such discrepancy, critics have pointed out, was that contrary to the prosecution’s version, he never seemed to have lived with two of his distant cousins, both accused in the “terror plots,” while he was in the U.K.

In the face of mounting pressure, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews did not hint at any review of the case.

On Saturday night, Imran Siddiqui, Dr. Haneef’s relative, arrived in Brisbane to provide support to him.

Unrelated to this, there was speculation that the Australian Government might consider deporting Dr. Haneef as an exit strategy to address the possible legal complications in the case.

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