Prosecutors may have given an Australian court wrong information about a suspect's links to the failed terrorist attacks in Britain, and badly damaged their chances of a conviction, laywers said yesterday.
Government prosecutor Clive Porritt told a magistrate last week that a cellphone SIM card registered to Mohammed Haneef was found in a gas canister-loaded Jeep driven into an airport entranceway in Glasgow last month.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp reported yesterday that unnamed officials in Britain and Australia say the card was seized from a suspect in the British city of Liverpool hours after the failed attack in Glasgow, not in the vehicle.
Haneef's lawyer, Peter Russo, said he had not yet been able to confirm the mistake, but that it could help in his client's defense of the charge of giving support to a terrorist organization.
"It's one piece, it's an inconsistency," Russo told reporters. "Court cases aren't won on one inconsistency. ... I wouldn't say with any certainty that this is the ace in the pack, so to speak, but it's definitely something we need to explore."
Other lawyers not involved in the case said the mistake, if true, could end the chances of a conviction, and that police had further compounded the error by not correcting the public record.
"It's a shocking mess up," senior lawyer Peter Faris told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "A competent cross-examiner will cut the police to pieces. It may well be that the prosecution case will collapse."
"You can't get something that's so central so wrong," he said.
Australian Federal Police and government officials declined immediate comment on the report, which comes as a debate rages in Australia and India about whether authorities have been overzealous in prosecuting Haneef under counterterror and immigration laws.
Haneef, a 27-year-old doctor from India, moved to Australia from Britain last year to work. Authorities arrested him July 2 as he tried to leave Australia for India.
He was then charged two weeks later with supporting a terrorist organization for leaving the SIM card with Sabeel Ahmed last year.
Sabeel Ahmed has been charged in Britain with withholding information that could prevent an act of terrorism. His brother, Kafeel Ahmed, is believed to have set himself ablaze after crashing the Jeep into the Glasgow airport and remains in hospital with critical burns.
The charge against Haneef, who is a distant cousin of the Ahmed brothers, hinges on the SIM card, which Haneef told police he left with Sabeel Ahmed when he left Britain so his cousin could use its unused credit.
The ABC reported that the card was seized from Sabeel Ahmed in Liverpool eight hours after the Glasgow attack.
A magistrate granted Haneef bail on Monday, saying the evidence Porritt presented was not enough to keep him detained. However Haneef chose to stay in police custody after the federal government canceled his work visa and said he would be held by the immigration authorities if he posted bail.
Lex Lasry, a prominent rights lawyer, said the reported mistake about the location of the SIM card should prompt the government to review its decision to revoke Haneef's visa.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS