By Neena Bhandari, IANS
Sydney : Muhammad Haneef, the Indian doctor detained in a Brisbane watch house since July 2 in connection with last month’s UK bomb plot, may be charged – or walk free – as early as Saturday but faces 12 more hours of police interrogation.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) at the eleventh hour Friday afternoon decided to drop its application to extend the detention of the 27-year-old Gold Coast registrar. Haneef was then moved from the Brisbane watch house to the state police headquarters next door, where his interrogation began at 3pm local time.
The AFP now have 12 hours to question Haneef, excluding usual break-times such as meals and sleep. His barrister Stephen Keim told the media, “I don’t know whether that is going to take 24 hours or 36 hours, but I think 24 hours would pull it up”.
Haneef’s lawyer, Peter Russo, told the media, “That doesn’t have to be 12 hours continual – so for example [in the] worst-case scenario he could be held for another three days while they did, say, four hours of questioning over three days if he was going to cooperate with them further.”
Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told Sky News he assumed the police were “satisfied that they have sufficient information about which they can pursue questioning”.
Earlier, his lawyer had said that Haneef was “a bit teary”. Russo also said that police had left Haneef’s apartment in an “unliveable” state after searching it several times to look for evidence.
Criticism brewed around Australia over what is seen as an abuse of the anti-terrorist powers forcing Prime Minister John Howard to once again defend the laws. The police argued that if Haneef is released it will make it difficult for them to monitor his movements.
Howard said, “There are all the safeguards in the world under these laws; people can’t be held without the authority of a judicial officer”.
“I’m happy with the laws because I sponsored them. I defend them (the laws)… and I’d say to the Australian public, we are living in different circumstances. We maintain the rule of law, but we have to have different rules applying that law to face different circumstances,” he added.
Haneef, who says he is innocent, is understood to have told the police that he had family ties and telephone contact with the suspected Glasgow bomber Kafeel Ahmed and that the two had shared a house in Liverpool for up to two years.
According to The Australian newspaper, police have been unable to find any evidence linking Haneef with the bomb plots in London and Glasgow.
According to the newspaper, material seized by the police include 1,636 photographs, a 40-gigabyte hard drive, an 80-gigabyte hard drive belonging to his friend and fellow-Gold Coast doctor Mohammed Asif Ali, two mobile telephones, a personal digital assistant, two 128-megabyte flash drives, a digital camera, email addresses, clothes, computer discs, a global positioning system and phone packaging.
The newspaper quotes police documents as saying, “He currently occupies a double bed by himself. Although he is locked down in this cell between the hours of 1730 and 0600, his cell is attached to a yard… to which he has access during daytime hours. This yard has a table and seating and he has access to a private shower.
“Attached to the day yard is a ‘light court’ where natural daylight filters into the secure area through the ‘light court’, which contains potted plants. He is given time in the large exercise yard of a minimum of about two hours twice daily – longer if he requests it. The exercise yard is approximately 9m by 6m, with 9m-high walls which provide natural air and sunlight. He has access to reading material such as magazines but not daily newspapers.”
Haneef, who was 12 days ago a respected doctor treating and caring for cancer patients is said to have told his wife during a brief telephone conversation recently: “Trust me, I am innocent. There cannot be any charge against me. Be sure that if I am framed, it will be nothing but a conspiracy and my bad luck.”
Meanwhile, as if being detained without charge was not bad enough, Haneef now faces eviction from his apartment in Gold Coast for allegedly failing to pay the rent.
Haneef is said to have always paid his rent and kept the apartment tidy, but now his landlord Callum Spence is seeking legal advice on whether he can be evicted for failure to pay rent.
In Australia rent is charged on a weekly basis. But Haneef has been in police custody since July 2 when he was arrested at the Brisbane International Airport on his way to India.