By Neena Bhandari, IANS
Sydney : Fresh details have emerged in the case of Muhammad Haneef, the Indian doctor charged in connection with the failed UK bomb attacks, though the Australian government has ruled out reviewing his detention despite mounting pressure from lawyers, civil right activists and politicians.
Commonwealth prosecutor Clive Porritt alleged Haneef had given his mobile phone SIM card to his second cousin Sabeel Ahmed, the third person charged in the plot, when he left Britain in July 2006.
He alleged Sabeel had then passed the card to his brother Kafeel, the driver of the Jeep Cherokee that crashed in the Glasgow airport June 30 and the SIM card had been found in the wreckage.
However, sources in the UK and Australia have told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the SIM card belonging to Haneef was actually seized by police eight hours after the jeep crashed into the airport terminal building, when Sabeel was arrested in Liverpool.
The 27-year-old Indian doctor has been charged under the Australian counter-terrorism laws with supporting a terrorist organisation by "recklessly" giving his mobile phone SIM card to people planning the UK bomb attacks.
Haneef has admitted to giving the SIM card to his second cousin Sabeel, so that the latter could take advantage of an "extra-minute deal" offered by mobile service provider O2.
According to reports, Sabeel had two phones on him at the time of his arrest, one of which contained Haneef's SIM card.
Sabeel has been charged with having information which he "knew or believed may be of material assistance in preventing the commission by another [person] of an act of terrorism."
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty dismissed allegations of incompetence following apparent flaws in the prosecution case against Haneef.
Despite mounting pressure from the lawyers, civil rights groups and minor political parties, Australian Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Kevin Andrews has ruled out reviewing Haneef's detention.
According to a spokesperson for the minister, Andrews' decision to cancel Haneef's '457 work visa' was based on more than the information provided to the magistrate in the bail hearing.
According to media reports here, the police record of interview and the information the minister relied on to cancel Haneef's visa were inconsistent.
Greens Party Senator Kerry Nettle told the ABC: "Either it is a massive mistake on the part of the federal police and the Australian government or it is them desperately looking to charge Dr Haneef and skimming over the facts of the case in making the decision to charge Dr Haneef."
Peter Beattie, premier of Queensland, the state where Haneef was employed, also sought an "explanation" fro the federal government of contradictions in the case against the Indian doctor.
He told the ABC Radio's PM programme: "What I want to do is to say to the federal government, for God's sake, you've got a series of contradictory things here, things that need to be explained. Unless you do so you are going to lose a lot of the Australian population, the thinking population of Australia that actually values our institutions".
Haneef, who hails from Bangalore, remains in solitary confinement at Wolston Correctional Centre in Brisbane's southwest after failing to post the AU$10,000 bail surety.
If the bail conditions were met, he would have been moved to the Villawood immigration detention centre in Sydney following the cancellation of his 457 work visa.
Haneef's legal team has until Monday afternoon to prepare an affidavit for the Aug 8 Federal Court appeal against the cancellation of his visa.
His lawyer Peter Russo told ABC radio: "The only way that we're ever going to prove whether that's true or not will be in an open hearing and the first opportunity we may get to do that will be on Aug 8.
"All I can do is just keep working hard and hopefully the process will unfold and the truth will be found somewhere in the unfolding of the different court hearings that we have."