British police quiz Indian doctor held in Australia

By DPA

Sydney : A senior British police detective arrived Thursday in Australia to question an Indian doctor held in Brisbane over botched car bombings in London and Glasgow.


Support TwoCircles

Mohammed Haneef, 27, was arrested Monday at Brisbane Airport while waiting to board a flight to India on a one-way ticket.

Seven doctors and one health technician, all of whom had worked in British hospitals, are already in custody over attempted car bombings last week in London and Glasgow.

Haneef, the only suspect held outside Britain, is from Bangalore, India and trained in the same Bangalore medical institute as Sabeel Ahmed, 26, who was picked up in the northern English city of Liverpool in the sweep that followed the failed bombings.

Haneef and Ahmed worked together in a Liverpool hospital until last year, when Haneef moved to Australia to take a job at Gold Coast Hospital near Brisbane.

Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said that British authorities had not sought Haneef's extradition and that he expected Haneef to be charged or freed before the end of the week.

Haneef's family in Bangalore said that the globetrotting doctor might have been picked up because he had bequeathed a mobile-telephone account to Ahmed when he left Britain.

Keelty has said there was more evidence to justify the arrest than mobile-phone records. He said a considerable amount of material had been gathered from search warrants executed in and around Brisbane.

The police officer, a chief inspector from Scotland Yard's counter terrorism unit, would not speak to reporters when she arrived at Brisbane airport.

SUPPORT TWOCIRCLES HELP SUPPORT INDEPENDENT AND NON-PROFIT MEDIA. DONATE HERE