By DPA
Sydney : An Indian doctor held in Australia over last month's failed car bombings in Britain is likely to be sent home as the charges of supporting terrorism against him have collapsed, news reports said Sunday.
The charge against Gold Coast doctor Mohammed Haneef is set to be dropped and the 27-year-old could be sent home to Bangalore, the Sun Herald newspaper said.
The inept handling of the case by police has damaged Prime Minister John Howard's government just months from a general election and frayed diplomatic relations with India, the Sydney paper said.
An unnamed government source was quoted as saying that with the deportation "the story ends there and he can become someone else's problem".
Haneef was arrested at Brisbane Airport July 2 while waiting with a one-way ticket for a flight to India.
Police initially alleged he had supplied a mobile phone SIM card to the group behind the failed bombings and that it had been found in a blazing jeep at Glasgow Airport. They have now retracted the allegation, saying the SIM card was found in a house in Liverpool.
Haneef had been in contact with his cousins, Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed. The brothers are terrorism suspects now in custody in Britain. He left his SIM card with Sabeel when he left Britain last year.
Sabeel Ahmed has been charged with having information that could have prevented a terrorist attack. Kafeel Ahmed is in hospital with life-threatening burns sustained when the explosives-packed jeep crashed into the concourse at Glasgow Airport June 30.
Peter Russo, Haneef's lawyer, said he had heard in press reports that police suspected his client of plotting to blow up a landmark building in the Gold Coast.
"A link to a tall building and a link to Sep 11 can only do one thing in the public arena and that's create fear," Russo said.
Imran Siddiqui, a cousin of Haneeef's wife who arrived at the weekend from Bangalore, told a gathering in Brisbane that he was innocent. "Back home we are all saying that Haneef is the victim of circumstance," he said. "We want him to come home with a clear charge."