This time, though, the conspiracy theory has gained currency among common Australians as well. One letter to the editor in The Australian newspaper cites the Haneef case to say, "It is an act of persecution. Simply, this government shames us all." A second read, "Seems somebody is clutching at straws to justify two weeks of very expensive investigation." And yet a third described Haneef as a "fat worm on the hook" with an election coming up, adding, "The liberals won't let him go now as he is to be the bait they will use to try to capture the voting public." Adding heft to these letters from aghast readers is Peter Bailey, a legal expert at the Australian National University, Canberra, who lamented to Outlook, "It's the bloody government up to its tricks again, trying to whip up things just before the elections."
But it's unlikely Howard will succeed this time around. An editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) said as much, "If opinion polls are to be believed, voters have a diminishing appetite for political stunts. In an election year, when politics cannot be avoided, that may be the ultimate verdict." The opposition Labor party has refused to be sucked into the Haneef debate, merely saying it gives support to the government, in principle, on the issue—and is letting the tussle between the judiciary and the executive play itself out in the media. At one stage, though, Queensland premier Peter Beattie, who belongs to Labor, exclaimed, "I don't mean to be critical of them other than to say, for God's sake, explain to the Australians why you have taken this course of action."
An explanation of the accusations against Dr Haneef was reported by Outlook last week. He was detained at the Brisbane airport on July 2 because he had a one-way ticket to India, "incriminating" because his cousin Kafeel had the previous day driven a flaming jeep into a Glasgow airport terminal; he was subsequently charged for "recklessly" supporting the terror group because he had, before leaving the UK for Australia, given his SIM card to Kafeel's brother, Sabeel Ahmed, who had been picked up from Liverpool. One of Haneef's lawyers, Peter Russo, says the word "reckless" isn't appropriate to describe what Haneef did.
Still, the Haneef issue could have blown away but for immigration minister Kevin Andrews revoking the Bangalore doctor's visa. The minister justified the act saying he had a responsibility to ensure that people on an immigration visa did not breach requirements that they be of "good character"; and that he had "reasonable suspicion" about Haneef's links to terrorists. A miffed Russo told Outlook, "Without going into the very complex and complicated legal process, suffice to say we have decided to challenge the government's decision to revoke Haneef's visa and have accused it of misusing its discretionary powers in doing so." The hearing on the visa issue is due on August 8.
Justice Jeffrey Spender, who heard the visa case, questioned Andrews' definition of good character. The SMH reported that Justice Spender even told government counsel Roger Derrington that "he (Spender) himself had associated with persons involved in criminal activity (during his days as a lawyer). 'I have defended them, charged with murder. Unfortunately, I wouldn't pass the character test...,' he said."
Other legal experts too have expressed outrage, saying the government's decision to detain Haneef will jeopardise his chances for a fair trial. "There are several places where the government may be seen to be in contempt of court," explains legal expert Bailey. "No minister to my knowledge has disregarded a court order in this way, and to take away his visa without sufficient reason is an attempt to exclude the court from the Migration Act. It's not enough for Andrews to say that he is satisfied that Haneef poses a terror threat to society here without explaining why." (The terror case is in the Brisbane magistrate's court, the visa case is in a federal court.)
Similarly, Tim Bugg, president of the Law Council of Australia, representing the country's 50,000 lawyers, told the SMH, "We're very critical of the position the minister (Andrews) has adopted. The procedure he followed was cloaked in secrecy. It's one in which the doctor had no ability to represent his position...." John Dowd, president of the executive committee of the International Commission of Jurists Australia, has been quoted saying, "Governments ought to respect decisions by the courts...the world now knows this government waited until the release on bail to do it (revocation of the visa). And you don't have to be terribly bright to work out the sequence of events."
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eanwhile, the Indian government's response has been deplorably passive. Considering its own dubious record of detaining terror suspects for years without trial, it came as no surprise that though New Delhi hauled up the Australian high commissioner John McCarthy to express dismay over the revocation of Haneef's visa, its 'criticism' was more rhetorical than substantial. Asked to explain what the Indian government expected of Canberra, a senior source in the India mission here said, "We request that Haneef, who has been linked by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to the failed terrorist plots in London and Glasgow, be given a fair and just trial under Australian law." The source didn't even express outrage at a case that is becoming more bizarre by the day, and instead chose to talk about the possible backlash against the Indian community here.
One of the strange twists to the case has been
The Australian newspaper publishing the text of the AFP's taped interview of Haneef. In it, Haneef denied he had ever been asked "to take part in jehad or anything that could be considered similar to jehad". He further told the AFP that he had, at his father-in-law's bidding (after his cousins were arrested in the UK), called the British police to tell them about the SIM card he'd given to Sabeel. But these calls went unanswered. Stephen Keim, Haneef's barrister, leaked the report to the press because he said he was tired of the selective leaks by the police and the government to bias the public against the Indian doctor.