Australia on the lookout for terrorists
From The Age: Andrews reveals Haneef details
Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has revealed details of an online conversation between Dr Mohamed Haneef and his brother in India to back his decision to cancel the doctor’s working visa.
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“I will not, however, release the full … protected material as I’ve been advised by the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police that this would have the effect of prejudicing or jeopardising further investigations.”
He said an internet chat room conversation that was monitored by police revealed the afternoon before Dr Haneef’s “attempted hasty departure” form Australia aroused suspicion.
“In it, the brother of Dr Haneef said: ‘Nothing has been found out about you’ and (he then) asks when he would get out, to which Dr Haneef replied ‘today’,” Mr Andrews said.
“The brother asked whether he had permission to take leave (from work) and what he’d told the hospital.”
Mr Andrews said Dr Haneef told his brother he had told the hospital that his wife had given birth to a daughter, and “nothing else”.
“The brother then said not to delay his departure and not to let anyone else use his number in Australia, nor to give it to anyone.
“The brother added that ‘auntie’ told him that brother Kafeel used it in some sort of protest over there,” Mr Andrews said, in a reference to UK bombing accused Kafeel Ahmed.
Mr Andrews said the AFP had told him before making his visa decision that police suspected the internet conversation may be evidence Dr Haneef had prior knowledge of the UK bomb plot.
“And secondly, the AFP consider Dr Haneef’s attempted urgent departure from Australia on a one-way ticket for a purpose which appears to be a false pretext to be highly suspicious and may reflect Haneef’s awareness of the conspiracy to plan and prepare the acts of terrorism in London and Glasgow.
“The suspicion which the federal police referred to in terms of Dr Haneef was that he was wanting to get out of Australia not because of the reason proffered, namely that the child had been born - remembering that that child had been born I think six days earlier.
“That that was a pretext, a false pretext, on which he was wanting to get out of Australia because of his association with the Ahmed brothers, the cousins, and the incidents which had occurred in the UK.”
Mr Andrews said Dr Haneef had not applied for leave from the hospital until after he had received two phone calls, including one from India, in which he was told there was an issue with his SIM card.“The whole circumstances surrounding Haneef’s attempted hasty departure from Australia, including chat room conversations, when viewed against his clear prior association with the Ahmed brothers, led me to form a reasonable suspicion as required by the migration legislation,” Mr Andrews said.
“I received information from the Australian Federal Police regarding Dr Haneef and I cancelled his visa in the national interest based on that advice.
“I will continue to put the security and safety of Australians first in relation to this matter.”
Given this government’s record of selective leaking to impugn Haneef’s reputation and increase suspicion there is no chance I’m going to accept these excerpts as evidence of anything. There is nothing whatsoever they have presented which is damning and can only be construed as ’suspicious’ when stripped of all context.
If the government succeeds in using this to divert attention from the bungles of the AFP & DPP and the current apalling (anti)-terror legislation my shortlived hope in this country’s decency will fade away. Perhaps Rudd will step up to the plate, but it is unlikely because there are no votes to win from this, only votes to loose.
Update:
From The Age: Haneef wanted to leave Australia quickly
Dr Haneef’s lawyer, Peter Russo, who is now with him in India, accused Mr Andrews of “clutching at straws” by suggesting the online chat room conversation with his brother may be evidence he was aware of the British car bomb plot.
He said Mr Andrews “has led the Australian public to believe that this is the secret information”. But it was “hardly secret information” because it had been put to Dr Haneef in the second recorded interview. He called on the Federal Government to “stop their campaign of innuendo and slander”.
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In a series of interviews yesterday, Mr Andrews raised more suspicion about Dr Haneef and lashed out at critics of the Government’s hard line, saying he wondered “whether people want a bomb to go off in Sydney before they’ll actually do something”.
I’m of the view, that the migration act needs to be amended such that people cannot have their visas stripped from them solely on the basis of suspicion and that suspicion should be at least be able to be tested (and rejected) by the courts.
Update:
From The Age: Minister ’selective’ on Haneef chat / Minister Destroying Haneef
Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has denied excluding key details from the police information he used to justify his decision to cancel Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef’s visa.
And Mr Andrews has been accused of trying to destroy Dr Haneef’s life by releasing already public information as “secret” details of his alleged association with failed UK terror plotters.
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However, Mr Andrews would not release all the protected police information, including the second record of police interview with Dr Haneef.
Dr Haneef’s lawyers said details of the conversations were old news, raised during Dr Haneef’s successful bail application last month.
“Mr Andrews has been going around saying that this is part of the secret information which the public weren’t allowed to see, but it was out in the public arena two and a half weeks ago,” lawyer Peter Russo told SBS television from India.
Mr Russo says the Indian doctor was asked about the chatroom conversation during a police interview and he is now calling on authorities to release that information to the public.
“Then they can make their own judgement calls, rather than release this inflamatory stuff that just, all it does is further tarnish Dr Haneef’s reputation in the Australian community, because its not the full version of the event,” he said.
Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett today also raised concerns about the Government’s tactics.
“This shouldn’t be about ministers seeing if they can get enough information out there to make the public sufficiently suspicious that they’ll let them get away with destroying a person’s life,” he told ABC radio today.
“This should be about having fair laws.”
When a government tells me I can have this bit of information but not that bit, it only heightens my suspicions!
And then there is this:
Mr Andrews questioned why Dr Haneef had not held a press conference before he left Australia at the weekend.
“He’s done numerous press conference in India … why didn’t this bloke actually turn up and front the Australian media and let them ask questions?” he said.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Immigration authorities had also made it a condition of Dr Haneef’s return to India that he did not speak to the media or allow his picture to be taken.
They cancel his visa, tell him they’re going to deport him, his leaving the country makes him look more guilty.
They tell him not to talk to the media, he manages an interview with 60 Minutes and THAT makes him look more guilty. Clutching at straws is right.
I wonder how it is that they got the chat transcripts? Almost certainly they obtained them when sorting through all the information sorted on his computer, that is after they arrested him. So unless the AFP were monitoring Dr. Haneef’s internet communications after the Glasgow bombing, this certainly wasn’t the information they relied on to arrest him at the airport, but found after the fact. Of course he was charged 12 days after that, charges that later fell apart completely.
I also read this in The Australian:
The exchange was revealed against a background of strident denials of any knowledge of terrorism by Dr Haneef, and his claim that he had tried repeatedly to contact Scotland Yard after hearing of the British bombing attempts. He had hoped to explain that he had left a mobile phone SIM card with a relative implicated in the attacks.
But the British authorities failed to return his calls.
Given that this claim has not been disproved by the Australian Federal Police, which they certainly could do with Haneef’s phone records I suspect it’s true. Can Andrews please explain why the terrorist fleeing the country under a “false pretext” was doing calling Scotland Yard? Four Times.
But do fleeing terrorists try to contact British police investigating terrorism attacks? On four occasions?
Pressure to make Haneef ‘guilty’
Is it because “he was worried about being framed over the card” as he told police in his first interview on July 3rd? That certainly seems a plausible explanation for the entirety of the chat excerpts.
Kevin Andrews on Mohammed Haneef
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