The plot thickens in the Case of Mohammed Haneef’s SIM card. The ABC has confirmed the substance of the earlier blog post: that the SIM card was found, not in the burning Jeep, but on Haneef’s cousin in Liverpool eight hours hence (it’s an audio report, but it’s the best one available; there’s a short news report here)
However, there’s an aspect to this I wasn’t aware of – the actual location of the SIM card is not what the prosecutor was claiming in court! According to the ABC story, the prosecutor at Haneef’s bail hearing in Brisbane on Saturday explicitly claimed that the SIM card in question was located “inside the Jeep Cherokee”. In subsequent comments in a radio interview, Peter Faris QC (hardly a bleeding-heart lefty) said that a “competent cross examiner will cut the police to pieces” over the problem, and that it “may well be that the prosecution case will collapse”.
Meanwhile, we might have to start calling the Government Gazette by its real name again if it keeps this up. It’s been comparing the police affidavit presented to the court in the bail hearing, and comparing it to the record of interview, and finds notable discrepancies. There are a couple of quite stark ones, but this is amongst the most dramatic:
The police affidavit states: “On 2 July and 3 July 2007 Dr Haneef participated in a taped record of interview with the AFP and stated the following: Whilst in the UK he resided with suspects 1 and 2 (alleged suicide bomber Kafeel Ahmed and his brother Dr Sabeel Ahmed), at 13 Bentley Road, Liverpool.”
However, in the record of interview, obtained by The Australian on Tuesday, Dr Haneef tells police that he lived at 13 Bentley Road, Liverpool, with several doctors, whom he names. None are the two suspects. Dr Haneef tells police he visited Cambridge on two occasions in 2004 and stayed for up to six days with Kafeel Ahmed.
There’s another twist, and this one reflects on Kevin Andrews’ attempts to keep Haneef in immigration detention. According to the Oz’s report, Kevin Andrews based his decision to revoke Haneef’s visa (and thus be able to throw him in immigration detention) is based, in part, on the very same, flawed affadavit. If his chances of having the decision to revoke the visa overturned were good before, they may have just gotten better…
Elsewhere: more from Surfdom and Blogocracy. , Counteract Now, and surely others.
Faris is blaming the AFP and DPP. He misses his mark. Try Howard, Ruddock and Andrews, Peter.
I think Faris is hoping to get the gig as head of a dedicated FBI-like organisation for the investigation and prosecution of terrorism-related crime.
I should have mentioned that Faris is a former Chair of the (former) National Crime Authority. And the dill wants a new body established specifically to investigate and prosecute terrorism cases. What terrorism cases? The ones involving loaning SIM cards, perhaps?
It now looks like Haneef has been incarcerated for over 2 weeks, where he will presumably remain indefinitely until deported, for the following conduct. He loaned a relative a SIM card. The relative has been charged in the UK for withholding evidence (not committing a terrorism offence). The SIM card was not used in the course of committing a terrorism offence. And this amounts to providing support for terrorism.
A previous post asked what the lawyers in the Government are doing to protest this. A good question, but it could be asked of all members of the Government of supposed conscience. Georgiou had some success in softening immigration laws, but where is his indignation about this unbelievable outrage? And what about the other supposed small-l liberals – Payne, Baird and the like? How long can they remain silent? I hope they’re sleeping well, although I can’t imagine how.
Yes. Let’s give it a funky name to go with the coercive powers such a body would obviously need. How about… National Crime Authority!
Faris Texas fingers Keelty; Janette fingers Rodent…what a reckless week; standby for mystery guest popping up on Piers lap 9am Sunday on your Janet…
Wonder which is worse, destroy(or attempt to, Justice Kirby, Wilkins and etc;) a persons career and hope for the future, or be complicit in just straight out killing them. Must be a lot of eye brow tugging whilst looking over Sydney Harbour.
Most people in LEAs called in the Crime Marketing Board.
Seems to be rather a rush by the peanut gallery to declare Haneef innocent.
Is there anyone who is unhinged enough to think that Haneef was detained without reason? That his case will not be investigated thoroughly? And that the outcome will depend on his guilt/innocence?
The more publicity this case gets the better, as it is sending the message that Australia is tough on suspected terrorists.
Well, the case hasn’t been investigated with any thoroughness so far SATP. But I’m with you on that last question – no-one here, I think, is unhinged enough to think that the outcome will depend on Haneef’s guilt or innocence. I believe that what comes next is known in laura norder circles as “bricking it in”.
SATP, but at no cost to you, so even if it is a complete f@%# up, and destroys a family and their future, no problem, thats how Australia works, well mate, thats not my Australia.Your post is just bloody stupid.It’s not about the Doctor, it’s us requesting that proper avenues of justice be attended to.
Steve (ATP),
You also appear to have forgotten that under our system of law, Haneef is entitled to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, not vice versa. As Lang Mack said, “bloody stupid”.
[Affidavit, with 2 "i"s Robert BTW--sorry to nitpick
]
“Flawed affidavit” indeed. Sounds like someone could be for the chop for breaching the relevant Oaths Act.
Could also be that there are some more profane oaths being sworn (but not signed) behind closed doors at Kirribilly House, the AFP and Dracula’s Department of Lawfulsome Excuses.
In Latin Legalese that would be:
Well, OK.
But Faris supports the torture of terrorists. Haneef is a terrorist by today’s normal standards: the authorities seem to think he is.
So, in Faris’s world, Haneeef gets tortured, and he tells the authorities more details of his involvement in the attack in Britain that make the inaccuracies irrelavant. Haneef even names other people who are rounded up that night. They get tortured and they confess too. Faris’s world.
Or does Faris get to say any old thing and just forget what he might have said the day before?
Oh, I’m quite prepared to believe he’s guilty of giving his cousin a soon-to-expire SIM card some year or so before the attempted terrorist attacks, Steve in the Pub.
As to whether that constituted a criminal offence, I’m yet to be convinced. On what basis do you think it did, apart from the fact that The Authorities Say So?
Steve-the-man-at-the-pub said: ‘Seems to be rather a rush by the peanut gallery to declare Haneef innocent’.
Steve, a blog needs a healthy dose of contrarians. Indeed I want what you say to be true (I don’t want to live in a Kafka world). But as a lawyer following these follies, I can only agree with Faris SC.
Yes, there’s been a ‘rush’: but a rush to action by the AFP/Minister following a rush to judgment by the media. Remember there is limited experience in this country in dealing with actual attempted terrorism, as opposed to bare conspiracies.
1. Attempted attacks occur in Britain.
2. Brits pass information that on a worst case scenario suggests a substantive link (Haneef’s SIM card).
3. AFP like rabbits in the spotlight; media frenzy ‘Aussie terror link’, innocent doctor colleague pilloried.
4. Long detention but rushed interview. Flimsy charge of ‘reckless support’. Quite unnecessary and rushed Ministerial intervention. Everyone dug in.
5. Brits so uninterested they do not seek Haneef’s extradition (as they surely would if he had any part in any conspiracy, let alone attempt).
Wait a week or two and Haneef will be released. Probably even before the Federal Court overturns Andrews’ determination. Keim SC, the Magistrate and Faris SC are no fools – the evidence/charges are exceptionally weak.
???????????? SO WHO FAILED THE CHARACTER TEST
All of this stuff was completely obvious – to me anyway – on Tuesday. I heard the mention on Lateline, but then had to check the details like names and charges in the British press via Google News. It was all there including the bit about the phone not being in the Jeep. It’s taken the Australian press an extraordinarily long time to pick up the story. It’s not like it’s something that originated in the Blogsphere which they had to spend time verifying. The ABC picked it straight up from the British press, so why didn’t our papers? Seems like if it doesn’t come in through the AP feed, it didn’t happen.
The commentary Norman links includes: ‘It seems to me that the gravest concern has been the way that immigration laws were used after the government found that their anti-terror legislation did not work as they expected.’
Fair comment, and it exposes yet another instance of their bastardry. If the judiciary doesn’t get you in the way we designed that it should, then we (the executive) will.
Want another example? Jack Thomas. The Victorian Court of Appeal found that the evidence obtained in Pakistan was inadmissible on the basis that it was obtained by oppressive means. So does the Government accept the umpire’s verdict in the way that you would (naively) expect that a real conservative Government committed to the rule of law would do? Not on your nelly. They slap a control order on Thomas, citing the need to protect us from the apparently self evident threat that he poses.
Read everything that you can that was published by the Government in advance of the legislation that allows for control orders to find the justification to use them in the case of someone who has been dealt with by the judiciary and allowed to go free. You won’t find anything, because it’s not there. And yet, the first (and so far only) time the power is used, these are the circumstances.
The Haneef case is the latest in this insidious saga. And they have the unbelievable effontery to champion their commitment to the rule of law.
Snorky, of course evidence obtained by “inadmissable means” is still evidence (though not admissable) however no evidence, of any sort, is another matter altogether, which is what it seems there is in this case.
However the court will decide (hopefully) and it may transpire that Haneef is wrongly accused (unlike Hicks & Jihad Jack Thomas).
Lang Mack, your Australia isn’t made up of the sort of people it took to build this country. Your Australia is a pantywaist myth.
If Gummo & Yourself would allow the cloud of funny smelling smoke to clear, you would both see that I am making the same case as you, (well perhaps not the same case as Gummo, who is more or less off his rocker with conspiracy theories. Gummo, somewhere in Montana there is a militia waiting for you).
Haneef’s case is before the court, his guilt or innocence will be decided by that court, not by a bunch of pot bellied guys in pyjamas clattering away on keyboards, & certainly not by a bunch of sem-deranged fairfax & ABC journalists.
Haneef is indeed entitled to the presumption of innocence. Also he has been CHARGED, and must answer those charges. Currently he ain’t on the same legal footing as we are.
That said, if the charges laid by the prosecution are not able to be proved, and furthermore they appear to be frivolous, well ain’t there going to be some really really red faces amongst the feds, & perhaps some political damage for the govt? Bwhahahaha….!!
Either way, Haneef isn’t going to disappear into a mysterious Gulag without explanation. Neither is anybody else for that matter. For the system which allowed Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Stalin, Mousey Tongue, Hitler, Franco et al does not apply in Australia
SATP, the problem is that was precisely what was going to happen to him.
The court decided that he was eligible for bail, the executive government decided to put him in immigration detention, which is intended to hold people so that don’t go anywhere until they can be deported. Except that he was going to have to wait in immigration detention – jail – for months, perhaps years, until the trial was complete.
How goes our “I Rooted A Girl Who Rooted A Guy Who Rooted A Girl Who Rooted A Guy Who Rooted A Girl Who Rooted Shane Crawford” laws?
BTW, thanks for the attribution, Robert.
The authorities are finally on the back foot and in damage control mode. Howard seems to have finally got the message that the executive is supposed to be at armslength from the judiciary but it is a pity that Howard, Ruddoch and Andrews didn’t shut up earlier in the case.
No he isn’t but he is not going to get back the time that his liberty was removed and one wonders what future he may have in his chosen profession – medicine if you must ask.
I wonder at the validity of laws that permits someone, on the evidence in the public domain, to be charged, twice removed from the criminal act.
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary responses but there has to proportionality in that response. For the life of me I can’t see the proportionality in the way that Haneef is being treated.
Yes there may be ‘things we don’t know, that we don’t know’ but the way these laws have been written there is a good chance we’ll never know. And because of the secrecy provisions even to the defence counsel may not have full access to the evidence against their client
This is a bad thing. It has been said before but it is worth repeating, it does not make sense to undermine the very liberties that you are supposedly attempting to protect.
Benjamin Franklin
For the system which allowed Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Stalin, Mousey Tongue, Hitler, Franco et al does not apply in Australia yet.
Fixed.
All I can say to above is “Duhhh”.
We were warned,by the few clear heads in Parliament (check etymology – a place of speaking),that these laws were going to be abused.
The only surprise is that they were abused so egregiously, so idiotically and so utterly without common sense. We have to call into question what function the AFP serves other than as a Praetorian Guard of the Emperor, l’Etat c’est Ratty.
Citizenry, or the common weal, can take a running jump.
And don’t think that many AFP aren’t very uncomfortable with this situation. The more recent recruits have had some Uni (aarghh)education and thus some passing acquaintance with moral philosophy.
Last thing this government needs in its enforcers.
On Lateline tonight, Howard was quoted as saying he couldn’t comment on the Haneef case because of the separation of powers – the Executive shouldn’t interfere with the judiciary and the matter is before the courts.
So now he has admitted there are separation of powers concerns about this case.
Problem 1: Executive (Ruddock?) instructs its agents (Federal Police) to lay a dodgy “inadvertantly assisting terrorism” charge that the magistrate assesses and says is weak and grants bail. FP gets some key facts they put in the public domain wrong (e.g. SIM card location)
Problem 2: Executive (Ruddock) harangues judiciary about “not acting properly on Legislature’s intent regarding the new anti terror laws”.
Problem 3: Executive (Andrews) overrides judiciary by using his discretion to cancel Shaneef’s visa, declare him of bad character and lock him up – without any check of his evidence being made (or needed). This will of course compromise his trial too. And he has been verballed too with the “there is more we cannot reveal” line.
Seems to me like lots of executive interference with the judiciary and a smattering of rank incompetence to boot.
Pinochet’s regime used to detain people they were convinced were “enemies of the state”.
This is duck soup. I think it is time to clean house at the upcoming election.
Assuming the reports are correct on the much travelled but dimmer sim, the best deal that the AFP will (probably) come up with is to not offer any evidence (ie leading to dismissal of the case) provided that (quid pro quo) there is no civil litigation for false/malicious arrest/prosecution.
Naturally this would all be hashed out behind closed doors.
But there will be a little matter of the defence’s legal costs, which being a court decided issue will not be so easy to hide, unless of course costs are also part of the hidden quid pro quo and not sought by the defence in court.
The shame and the red faces, the incompetence, the hubris and follies of mice, media and policemen.
Watch out for rolling heads at the AFP and holier than thou, Pontius Pilate Pollies, washing their hands clean of this debacle:
(apologies to Messrs Gilbert & Sullivan.)
Peter Faris in the past has supported the idea of torturing terrorists to get information. I’m sure he didn’t mean “convicted” terrorists. Bit too late by then. Which leaves us with “alleged” terrorists.
Why isn’t Peter Faris complaining about Haneef not being tortured as part of due process?
Several other pundits have supported torture. Is not Haneef a perfect candidate? Let us ask them, eh?
Torture not required in Haneef’s case. It is likely that he does not possess vital inside information on an immenint terrorist attack. He is being prosecuted very much after the fact, and at a few degrees of separation from the attack itself.
However,just say, if he had been part of a group which had planted an as yet undetected Madrid style bomb somewhere on an Australian commuter train, and likely to kill thousands, and he was clamming up about the location of it? Would extreme measures (ie torture) be okay to use on him?
Ask peak hour public transport commuters and you’ll recieve a refreshingly commonsense answer to that.
Agreed…
Torture is a stupid idea.
My reasons for not using torture are not because I sympathise with the enemy, and am squeamish about causing distress to some Mohamed Atta type, but that information gained from torture can be of… er.. variable accuracy. More subtle methods of extracting information can usually produce better results.
But, if it is likely to work, particulary in a situation where time is of the essence, then torture should be considered.
I wouldn’t say it is stupid David, just mostly not called for. But I would NEVER rule it out, because the knowledge that it is not ruled out will certainly assist with putting the wind up captives.
No, but it sounds like whether he is found guilty or innocent, the government has decided he’s going to be deported. Of course it will be based on information which they simply can’t tell us, avoiding any public examination of the evidence.
Paul Kelly from the Government Gazette tries to defend the Government propaganda.
Well one thing is certainly clear Kelly, the Government Gazette will never be the last line of defence. I don’t think a ‘journalist’ of your experience should be sneering at such basic democratic principles being trampled on by a Government.
That’s the problem right there, the unquestioning acceptance of the Howard/Bush line that these are ‘extraordinary times’, while in other contexts they assure us gravely that the War on Terror will go on for generations. These are not extraordinary times and efforts by authoritarian people to use that argument as a ruse to increase the powers of the state need to be resisted.
All liberal democrats regardless of party should be pressing for the repeal of the so-called ‘anti-terrorism’ laws that free the executive government from challenge by an independent judiciary. If we’ve learnt anything at all about governance over the centuries it’s that the executive always wants to get more power and when they get it they always misuse it sooner or later.
There’s a body of thought within the blogosphere that says the problem with the Haneef affair is not the laws but the malicious way Howard’s mob have applied them. That’s bullshit, designed to excuse the Labor Party’s craven refusal to change the laws if they win government. The problem is not the way the laws have been applied, it’s the nature of the laws themselves.
The strangest silence has come from some who call themselves libertarians. It seems their commitment to individual freedom starts and finishes in the economic dimension. When it comes to the most fundamental freedom a person can have, namely liberty of movement, they seem prepared to condone authoritarian government if the alternative is to have to agree with the despised social progressives. Hypocritical wankers.
Descent into farce says the smh
Says Mr Kelly who apparently wouldn’t recognise a political trial if he tripped over one. What lawyers and judges do rather well, more often than not, is SMELL a RAT, in a prosecution case and otherwise, in the legislation when it’s wearing jackboots.
Now I’m wondering what the political fallout will bring–would Joe Sixpack in the ‘burbs fall for even more draconian legislation such as elimination of all bail in terrorist cases? Somehow I doubt it.
Peter Kemp, you may be surprised by what Joe Sixpack would fall for. His Australian counterpart, the blue collar worker, is remarkably susceptible at times. If the legal system was amended by the opinions of the average citizen there would be stocks in every main street, a well used lash, and terrorism suspects would quite possibly be fed to sharks in Sydney acquarium.
“and terrorism suspects would quite possibly be fed to sharks in Sydney acquarium.”
Terrific. Once completely unsubstantiated accusations resulted in senseless murder, you’d final have given jihadists a reason to launch a terrorist attack in Australia.
I do wonder what level of administrative incompetence supporters of the Coalition’s utter cock-up are willing to accept at this late stage. Their desperation to register themselves on the international map of over-reaction is quite embarrassing. One day, they’re going to push around the wrong innocent person, and who’ll wear the blow-back?
Even a quite straightforward and sensible man like Mick Keelty is going to be soiled by the fall-out from this one. Which is a shame, because he’s managed to distinguish himself despite having to operate side-by-side with b-grade acts like Downer, Ruddock and Howard.
To quote Waleed Aly this morning, “Haneef may well be guilty of something. But even so, the government’s intervention….is a strategic blunder.”
He’s pretty well nailed it there.
It may well be worth saying less, but giving what one says a lot more consideration. See you at the aquarium SATP. I’ll be wearing the red carnation.
And this state of affairs would last precisley as long as it took Joe six pack to work out that the laws would in the end, be used, against him and his mates. It’s always the way. That’s where authoritarian populists come unstuck. It’s all good, until the one time when you f**k up, and the object of the lovely scam known as ‘ the campaign for common sense and the defence of the mainstream’, strikes at the heart of some other popular value, one not quite so beloved of the real elites, that seek to govern in the name of the ‘common man’. Then all hell breaks loose.
That’s what is happening now. Watch this space.
SATP, I guess because of some of the odd and occasionally personal,(you owe Gummo and I both an apology ‘re the drug reference) things you come up with, that I remember some of your work, one lot was that you employ people.
Do you have any Federal Government contracts, say to do with Detention Centres or consult to DIC or AFP or ATG. Just curious.
Me, I’m enjoying going back to Crazy Drunken Style Milne’s piece: Lunatic liberty lovers lose the plot.
Hey, Haneef! Enjoying the show from your comfy little cell? I bet.
1. I find it extraordinary that Howard, his stooge Keelty, Ruddock and others want us (media, citizens and bloggers etc.) to leave the matter alone and let it run its course. naturally, if that had happened no light would have been shone on the facts, leaving only the AFP/DPP fabrications.
2. Even more astonishing is Howard’s disingenuous claim that he cannot comment as he and his government have nothing to do with the Haneef matter, that it is all in the judicial arena, to be soerted out there. Who, then, I wonder, is this “Kevin Andrews” who claims to be Minister for DIC? Is he unconnected with the government? Has he not made a polticial, as opposed to judicial, decision about Haneef?
3. The actual charge agsint Haneef is ludicrous. It is nonsensical in legal terms.
No terrorist organisation has yet been established as fact by the British police. The suspects will have to be tried and convicted in the UK to establish that. So either the charge will have to be dropped or Haneef will have to remain in detention at least until the British trial, if there is one, is concluded before he can be tried here. The charge itself, presuming as it does the guilt of the two suspects in Britain, severely compromises their position.
What possibly can “being reckless as to whether the organisation was a terrorist organisation” mean? If you provide anything of any kind which can be regtarded as a “resource” (a meal, money, mobile phone, haircut, pharmaceuticals to anyone are you required to ensure that the recipient is not part of a terrorist organisation? How ought you do that (especially when you provide the resource a full year before the persons themselves may even have decided whether or not to be part of a terrorist organisation)? Ask them “before I provide this, are you a terorist or part of a terrorist organisation, or are you planning to be in the future, or might you conceivably be at some unspecifiable time in the future? Please sign this indemnity before I give you the ten dollars”? How can you be “not reckless” about the existence or otherwise of a terrorist organisation which has no judicial or political recognition?
This is apparently quite serious, because this is what it seems Haneef was expected to do – to satisfy hinmself a year before when he gave a phone/card to his cousin that his cousin was not or was not intending or might not be at some future time involved in some terrorist act as part of some sort of organisation (which it appears can be a group of two).
Sabeel, by the way, has not been charged with being a terrorist or part of a terrorist organisation but with withholding information, in contradiction of the AFP’s charge against Haneef.
The whole thing is a legal nonsense.
No Federal government contracts whatsoever.
Steve runs a pub up north though he’s never said where.
I’m guessing its Mornington Island or TI but i really dont have a clue.
(Am i warm?)
And no apology
No Cowgirl, don’t think SATP would be attracted to the actual dealing of getting a dollar by merit. Have a feeling he gets by bye being planted in a secure tax payed position, where he can snipe from the point of comfort. Mind you, he makes some sense on occasions, alas , he makes a goose of himself(with sorry to geese) by not considering before he outlets.. (I want that apology SATP, re the drug bit, OK )
Not necessarily Roger M. If the “organisation” is already listed, that’s a slam dunk. If there is no listing, (as in Haneef’s case we can safely assume) a court has under the Commonwealth’s Criminal Code, a statutory definition which it can apply, ad hoc, and seemingly retrospectively.
It’s a dog’s breakfast and it’s here, scroll down to section 102:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html
Well OK. You would never rule it out.
But how could you judge that time was not of the essence when Haneef was first taken in? The FBI weren’t looking for terrorists just before 9/11 regarding 9/11. No-one was searching for the Bali bombers prior to their attack. In both those instances there were people, that if arrested, had information about those attacks.
When he was first detained, how could you be certain there was no imminent attack on Australian soil and Haneef did not have information on it.
The whole idea is that the authorities don’t know about the attack. Wouldn’t the idea be if torture has any value to just torture everyone that gets detained and pass on the information.
Or is your thinking that the next time the terrorists plan a major attack the authorities will know all about it and arrest the leaders and torture information out of them that they already know?
Terrorists don’t tell you what they are going to do. All Australian authorities knew was that Haneef may be a part of a terror network. No-one could have been more appropraite to torure in this brave new world of yours than Haneef at the time of his arrest. Its no good with 20/20 hindsight to say that the good doctor is probably totally innocent. At the time he had to be a terror suspect because of his connection.
Why all this squeamish backpedalling?
Torture supporters should explain their theory in a more detailed, down-to-earth, practical way.
Fair cop. It was an ‘reckless’ turn of phrase. ‘Twould have been better if I had qualified it by ‘Even if you believe …’
On reflection, at some subconscious level, I’ve bought the whole idea of ‘a war on terror.’
Doh!
I see in the Sun-Herald that the Executive is planning on resolving the problem they have created, by deporting the problem.
It would appear that Haneef is not to have the opportunity to clear his name – with all the ramifications that has for his future life. Does anyone else have sick feeling in their stomach?
I’ve just put up a new post on today’s media reports and other developments here. In brief, some new “facts” have
emergedbeen created.So I’d suggest continuing the discussion on the facts of the case on the new thread.