By Neena Bhandari, IANS
Sydney : Muhammad Haneef, the Indian doctor detained without charge in a Brisbane watch house for nine days in connection with the British terror plot, will spend two more days in detention.
Brisbane court proceedings were adjourned until 2.15 p.m. Friday. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) applied for a three-day extension to Haneef's detention without charge.
Haneef's lawyer Peter Russo told the media: "The matter has been adjourned until Friday afternoon. There was legal argument tonight and the magistrate has gone away to consider that. I can't really comment on what the point of law was at this stage because, basically, he has reserved his decision."
Since his arrest July 2, Haneef was able to speak to his wife in Bangalore for the first time after the Indian consulate confirmed the family phone number for security purposes Wednesday afternoon.
The Australian Greens Party has called for Haneef to be charged or released. Greens senator Kerry Nettle told reporters: "It's quite an extraordinary period of detention."
Civil liberty groups here are saying that Haneef is being denied natural justice even as the authorities argue that the complexity of the case is making it necessary to detain him.
Haneef has been held without charge under Australia's new counter terrorism laws. There have been concerns raised from various quarters since the counter terrorism laws were introduced. There is no specified maximum time limit for detention in the legislation. Civil liberty groups are calling on the Australian government to review these laws.
University of New South Wales Professor George Williams told local media: "He (Haneef) doesn't know whether he's going to be charged, he doesn't know whether he's going to be set free.
"Unfortunately what happens during this period is people speculate, they wonder what's happening, they think 'where there's smoke there's fire' and his reputation gets tarnished. Even if it turns out that he's done absolutely nothing then he will find it very hard to go back to his normal life."
However, federal attorney general Philip Ruddock has maintained that Haneef's detention is essential because the police needs more time to examine the 31,000 documents seized from across Australia.
Defending Haneef's arrest, Ruddock told ABC Radio: "The length of time a person can be held without charge in Australia is determined by a magistrate. It's limited by the reasonableness and the evidence."
Ruddock told the media: "This is not a situation in which the police are free agents in relation to holding people. These are the issues that the court has to take into account in deciding whether or not the period is reasonable.
"You would be asking me different types of questions if the inquiries were truncated unnecessarily and we found out later that there were avenues of inquiry that could have been pursued … that would have been or may have been ascertained and weren't, if some terrible event happened in Australia."
The president of the Queensland council for civil liberties Michael Cope has said the judicial process in Haneef's case has been hampered by the fact his lawyer has been denied access to the evidence collected by the police against his client.
Meanwhile, according to an intelligence source quoted in the country's current affairs magazine, The Bulletin, a group of 20-25 Australian men and women are now under constant surveillance as they can pose a potential threat.
The magazine says intelligence officials believe the APEC summit in Sydney, scheduled for early September, will be an appealing target.
US President George W. Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other world leaders will be attending the summit.
(Neena Bhandari can be contacted at [email protected])