By Murali Krishnan, IANS
New Delhi : The Australian government's decision to drop terrorism charges against Indian doctor Muhammad Haneef and the admission that they had made a 'mistake' once again highlights how often investigators in both the West and India have gone wrong in the age of terror.
Haneef, 27, who was arrested in connection with a failed bomb plot in Britain and charged with recklessly supporting terrorism by providing a relative with his mobile phone SIM card, has been in jail since July 2. And he has been in solitary confinement since July 18.
Haneed has not been the only victim in this age of heightened insecurity and global terror.
In recent years, there have been several high-profile cases of victims who have been beaten and tortured on suspicion of terror links.
The story of Syrian born Canadian Maher Arar — deported in September 2002 from New York, not to Canada, just across the border, but to Syria where he spent nearly a year in prison — is one of the best-known cases of racial profiling in the wake of 9/11 and the war on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Arar was transported to a prison in Syria where he was held for 10 months and 10 days in a cell that resembled a grave. He was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession about having ties to Al Qaeda.
He was eventually released without charge and became the first survivor of the US government's extraordinary secret rendition programme to speak out.
Though the Canadian government cleared his name and criticised the Bush administration for its actions, he still remains on the US no-fly list.
"I will never forget my disgraceful treatment in Syria. What was most appalling was the press in Canada did no independent investigation and fell for all leaks of the authorities," Arar told IANS in a recent interview.
"You never know the feeling to be illegally detained, imprisoned and then tortured," he said.
In January this year, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to Arar and announced $12.5 million in compensation.
Then there is the case of Khaled el-Masri, a 43-year-old German of Lebanese descent. He became the focus of international attention in 2004 after he was released from US captivity and dumped on a road near the border between Macedonia and Albania where he was told by guards: "Don't bother telling anybody what happened to you – they won't believe you."
The story unravelled later – how the CIA had mistaken him for an Al Qaeda suspect and kidnapped him while he was on holiday and travelling through Macedonia on a coach in December 2003.
Masri was flown to a CIA renditions prison in Afghanistan where he was beaten and sexually abused by his captors for five months before they realised they had detained the wrong person.
His case is the subject of a major parliamentary investigation in Germany over the extent to which the then government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had knowledge of the kidnapping.
In the US, Masri's case has been frequently cited by human rights activists in their campaign to stop the practice of renditions.
Closer home, Mohammed Afroze was in a Mumbai prison for four months in December 2001 on charges of conspiring to commit terrorism in Australia and London. He finally walked out a free man.
Police said then that he was a member of the Al Qaeda and was part of a conspiracy to blow up the Parliament House in New Delhi, the House of Commons in London and the Rialto Towers in Sydney.
He was the first person to be booked under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) on March 1, 2002 but was released on bail, as police did not find enough evidence to file a charge sheet.
The acquittal of Kashmiri lecturer, S.A.R. Geelani, accused of conspiring in the attack on parliament here in December 2001, is another case in point.
Although Geelani was awarded the death sentence by a special POTA court, the judgement was turned down by the Delhi High Court that finally acquitted him.
"The manner in which I was arrested is revealing in itself. It was the last Friday of Ramadan and I was on a public bus on my way to offer prayers when some police officers in plain clothes intercepted the bus," said Geelani.
He was then taken to an interrogation centre and allegedly forced to sign a confession admitting guilt for the parliament attack. When he refused, he was tortured.
"I was stripped, beaten up and hanged upside down for hours at a stretch. The police then picked up my family and threatened to rape my wife and kill all of us, including my three-year-old son."
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