The Australian government and opposition yesterday refused to apologize to an Indian doctor wrongly charged over a British terrorist plot as his lawyers said they would seek substantial compensation.
Mohamed Haneef has demanded an apology for being mistakenly arrested, detained and charged over a failed plot in July last year to detonate bombs in London and Glasgow, while his lawyers say he will seek compensation for his ordeal.
An official report released on Tuesday found that Australian authorities wrongfully arrested and held Haneef, now living in the Middle East, as they ignored evidence and botched the high-profile investigation.
But Attorney-General Robert McClelland said it was up to the previous Australian government to apologize, while his predecessor said Haneef should not be entitled to an apology or compensation for his ordeal.
“I don’t apologize for seeking to ensure that the law works as intended,” former attorney general Philip Ruddock, who was in charge of the justice department when Haneef was arrested in July last year, told Australian radio.
“My view is that one should not apologize for seeking to ensure that matters that tragically occur that involve terrorist acts are thoroughly investigated to see whether or not there are any implications for Australia,” he said.
“I have seen nothing in the report which suggests that the conduct that I undertook should have been conducted in any other way,” he said a day after retired judge John Clark issued his damning report on the Haneef case.
Haneef’s working visa was also revoked and he was unceremoniously kicked out of Australia even after the flawed case against him finally collapsed two weeks after it was launched in a blaze of publicity.
But the report by retired judge John Clarke cleared the then ailing former government of pursuing the case for political reasons. McClelland said the government of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would not apologize at the current stage of the legal process as it was clear Haneef would launch an action for compensation.
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
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Counting was under way in Nepal yesterday, after a high-stakes parliamentary election to reshape the country’s leadership following protests last year that toppled the government. Key figures vying for power include former Nepalese prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli, rapper-turned-mayor Balendra Shah, who is bidding for the youth vote, and newly elected Nepali Congress party leader Gagan Thapa. In Kathmandu’s tea shops and city squares, people were glued to their phones, checking results as early trends flashed up — suggesting Shah’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was ahead. Nepalese Election Commission spokesman Prakash Nyupane said the counting was ongoing “in a peaceful manner”
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