Australian police arrested an Indian doctor in connection with Britain's car bomb plot just as he was trying to leave the country, authorities said yesterday.
The 27-year-old man, identified by media as Mohamed Haneef, worked as a hospital registrar and was detained at Brisbane airport on Monday as he tried to use a one-way ticket.
"The man has been taken into custody and questioning is underway," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said, adding that the doctor had been detained by counter-terrorism police on the advice of British authorities.
Haneef was one of eight people -- including at least five medical professionals -- whose arrests were announced on Monday by British police following three failed car bombings in London and Glasgow last weekend.
"The individual concerned was seeking to leave Australia and I understand did not have a return ticket," Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock said following the arrest.
While officials refused to name the suspect, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation identified Haneef, saying that he was a graduate of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in Bangalore, India.
Officials said he had been in Queensland state since his recruitment from the northern British city of Liverpool last September.
It was not known what the doctor's possible role in the failed attacks might have been, but his basic profile appeared to match those of other suspects being held in Britain: young, non-British and medically trained.
British police said a Jordanian doctor and an Iraqi doctor were among those being held in Britain after the abortive bomb attacks.
Meanwhile, a bomb disposal team carried out a controlled explosion in Scotland yesterday morning on a suspicious car parked outside the Forth Street Mosque in Glasgow.
Police said there was no indication that the mosque had any connection to the bombing attempts in Glasgow or London.
A British security official said on Monday Pakistan and several other countries had been asked to check links with the suspects.
Authorities said police searched at least 19 locations as part of the "fast-moving investigation."
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