An Indian doctor cleared of involvement in failed British car bombings left Australia for his homeland yesterday after authorities handed back his passport, his lawyer said.
Australian officials told Mohamed Haneef he was free to leave a day after the doctor was released from custody into house arrest, after the case against him collapsed.
While Haneef no longer faces terrorism charges, his Australian working visa remains suspended and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said he would fight any attempt to have it restored.
"I do not propose to change my decision and the Commonwealth will continue to resist this appeal in the Federal Court," Andrews told reporters.
Andrews said Haneef's lawyers had sought permission for him to leave Australia after his release and the government agreed because the doctor would not have been allowed to stay without a visa anyway.
Andrews, who has faced severe criticism for exercising a little-used ministerial power to cancel Haneef's visa, said he would seek to release the confidential police material on which he based the decision.
Haneef's lawyer Peter Russo said authorities had gagged his client from speaking to the media before his flight out of Australia last night to join his family in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
Russo said Haneef would continue the fight to clear his name from his homeland.
He called for the Australian government to apologize over the 27-year-old's treatment and urged Andrews to immediately reinstate his visa.
"He [Andrews] seems to be the only person in Australia who still thinks Dr Haneef is guilty of something," Russo said.
He said Haneef was homesick and wanted to see his family, including his wife Firdous, who gave birth to a daughter last month, shortly before his arrest.
"This has been a severely traumatic time for him, made worse by the fact that his wife has just had their first child, a baby Dr Haneef has not even seen yet. His mother is also ill and he wants to be there with her," Russo said.
Haneef's departure ended an ordeal that began on July 2, when he was arrested at Brisbane Airport, then spent almost four weeks in custody as police charged him with "reckless" support for a terrorist group.
The charge centered on a mobile phone SIM card that Haneef last year gave to his second cousin Sabeel Ahmed, who has been charged with withholding information following last month's failed bombings in London and Glasgow.
Sabeel's older brother Kafeel Ahmed remains under police guard in a British hospital with severe burns after allegedly ramming a blazing car into Glasgow Airport on June 30.
The case against Haneef failed after red-faced prosecutors admitted they falsely claimed in court that his SIM card was found in the burning car and inaccurately said he had shared a flat with some of the British bomb suspects.
Russo said Australia's counterterrorism laws needed to be examined to ensure the case was not repeated.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS