Terror suspect Mohamed Haneef told Australian police he knew nothing about the plot to launch attacks in London and Scotland, and freely admitted he knew two suspects being detained in Britain, leaked interview documents have shown.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the leaking of the interview, which was published in yesterday's Australian newspaper, could jeopardize Haneef's trial and was being investigated as possible contempt of court.
The publication came amid intense debate about whether Haneef, an Indian doctor who came to Australia from Britain last year, is being treated fairly by police and the Australian government.
Haneef, 27, was arrested as he tried to leave Australia for India with a one-way ticket on July 2, two days after two men drove a flaming Jeep loaded with gas canisters into the international airport in Glasgow, Scotland.
Unexploded car bombs had been found in London the day before.
Haneef was charged on Saturday with giving support to a terrorist organization for leaving his mobile phone SIM card with two distant cousins, one of whom was in the Glasgow Jeep. The SIM card was also found in the burned-out vehicle, police say.
A magistrate this week granted Haneef conditional bail, saying the prosecution's evidence was not strong enough to keep him in jail. Within hours, the federal government revoked Haneef's visa and said he would be taken into immigration custody if he made bail.
Haneef's lawyers were due to lodge an appeal of the visa decision yesterday.
The Australian posted on the Internet what appeared to be the official transcript of a July 3 police interview with Haneef. Condemning the leak on national radio, Keelty did not challenge the authenticity of the document.
In the interview, Haneef was asked what he knew of the attempted London bombing and said he didn't know anything about it.
Pressed further, he replied: "I gather about Glasgow thing and there was some plot in London. But I don't know, I have not any relation with that at all.''
Separately, he told his interviewers he gave Sabeel Ahmed his mobile phone last year before he left for Australia because it had some unused credit. He also said he borrowed up to ?300 (US$615) from Kafeel Ahmed in 2004 to pay for a medical exam.
Kafeel Ahmed is believed to have set himself ablaze after crashing into the Glasgow airport and remains in a Scottish hospital with critical burns. Sabeel, his brother, has been charged with withholding information that could prevent an act of terrorism.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS