Mr Beattie told The Australian last night he was “amazed� at Mr Keelty’s latest comments. “I can’t understand why, if that’s true, they let him leave the country,�

This is the real issue and one which Andrews and the cheersquad of RWDB’s will not touch with a forty foot barge pole.

AUSTRALIAN Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty yesterday added another gaffe to the mistake-strewn case against Mohamed Haneef, confusing the location of the terror suspect’s mobile phone SIM card.

Just days after the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the case against Dr Haneef after admitting errors in its evidence relating to the SIM card, Mr Keelty was yesterday forced to retract claims made earlier in the day that the card was found in the vicinity of the failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow in late June.

The card, which prosecutors told the court was found in the burning Jeep that crashed into Glasgow airport, was actually found 300km away in the English city of Liverpool with Dr Haneef’s second-cousin Sabeel Ahmed. Mr Keelty yesterday argued that the fact the card was not in the explosive-laden jeep did not diminish its importance.

“For all that’s been said about the SIM card, the SIM card is still in the vicinity of London at the time that the devices were attempted to be exploded,” he told journalists. “The SIM card is still at Glasgow, at the airport, at the time that the attempted bombing happened there.”

An AFP spokesman later corrected the comment, explaining that the commissioner had intended to say the SIM card was linked to people in the vicinity of the attempted bombings.

Mr Keelty’s blunder came as it emerged that a conversation between Dr Haneef and his brother, relied upon by Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews to deport Dr Haneef, had been conducted in Urdu and translated into English.
Mr Andrews yesterday conceded the conversation was not in English, but rejected calls for the original-language version to be released for independent scrutiny and translation.

According to the translation provided by Mr Andrews on Tuesday, the conversation on an internet chatroom shows Dr Haneef’s brother urging the terror suspect to leave Australia as quickly as possible as “nothing has been found out about you”.

Dr Haneef, speaking in Bangalore last night, agreed that the transcript as released by Mr Andrews had been taken out of context. “Once you get the (full transcript of) the whole chat, you will understand it,” he said.

Mr Keelty said the troubled investigation into Dr Haneef was neither over nor bungled, and the 27-year-old Indian Muslim, now home in Bangalore, could still face criminal charges. “It’s still potentially possible that a brief of evidence will be submitted against Dr Haneef,” he said.

And he confirmed that a second Indian-trained doctor in Queensland, Mohamed Asif Ali, an associate of Dr Haneef who was initially detained on suspicion of links to the British terror attacks and then released, remained a person of interest and would be “until we satisfy ourselves we know everything we should know about Dr Ali”.

Last night SBS’s Dateline program showed an undated Indian police dossier suggesting a link between Dr Haneef and the al-Qa’ida terrorist group, but it remained unclear whether it had been prepared after advice received from Scotland Yard or the AFP. One section — titled “Organisational set-up” refers to “alleged links to al-Qa’ida” but provided no other details.

Asked last night about the claims, Dr Haneef said: “I have no idea on these things. Sorry, I can’t comment.”

Dr Haneef, a registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital, was arrested at Brisbane International Airport on July 12, held for 12 days and charged with reckless assistance to terrorists. After being granted bail, his work visa was controversially cancelled on character grounds by Mr Andrews, and Dr Haneef was ordered to remain in custody. He was released last Friday after the prosecution case collapsed over the flawed evidence.

Mr Keelty yesterday raised the possibility Dr Haneef might face further questioning in India.

“We are communicating with the Indian police,” he said.

Indian anti-terror police last night warned Dr Haneef they wanted to “interrogate” him over his links to alleged British bombers Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed. Officers of the Anti-Terrorism Squad in Bangalore were reported to have called at Dr Haneef’s family home and told relatives to pass on the message they wanted to speak to him.

The joint Commissioner of Police in Karnataka state, Gopal B. Hosur, told The Australian last night it was likely that Dr Haneef would be called for questioning in a few days.

Mr Keelty’s confusion over the SIM card, and his new warning that Dr Haneef could again be charged, drew an angry response from Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who said it was imperative for a national inquiry to resolve the saga.

Mr Beattie told The Australian last night he was “amazed” at Mr Keelty’s latest comments. “I can’t understand why, if that’s true, they let him leave the country,” Mr Beattie said when asked about Mr Keelty’s comments that a prosecution could still ensue.

Mr Beattie remained scathing of Mr Andrews, accusing him of trying to save his political hide by selectively releasing parts of an internet conversation between Dr Haneef and his brother.

“I think most people will only be satisfied when they get the whole transcript,” he said.

Dr Haneef’s solicitor, Peter Russo, who has been in Bangalore with his client since the weekend, sharply criticised the latest development. Mr Russo said he was sick of seeing Dr Haneef’s name slandered without reason, and he called on police to produce the entire record of interview.

Additional reporting: Bruce Loudon, Sarah Elks

a lack of faith in government has become essential for your own survival.

I feel yer getting somewhat histronic there Graham and so doing your views no favour. True the current Coalition Government sits there like an overipe avacodo, rrotten, oozing and attracting flies with the price artifically inflated, more that ready to be replaced by a fresh, ripening ALP mango delivered at market prices, all plump, juicy and cleanskinned until you eventually bite down on the big stone and notice the circling fruitbats.

But either way, we will survive. On wheat and potatoes generally I suspect.

However, political wallahs doing point-scoring might not welcome any such retranslation.

Sadly, in Australia these days, a lack of faith in government has become essential for your own survival.

Much and all as I disliked him, I’m sure Peter Hollingworth, had he remained Governor-General, would not have put up with all the shenanegans by the current Prime Minister.

What do you know - it wasn’t satire after all.

They will sniff it, bite it, circle it, throw it in the air and catch it, roll it in the dirt and declare it suspicious and that tentatively it suffices as favourite toy and food.

There’ll be organisms all round the RWDB blogosphere tonight!

In what language was the Haneef chatroom ‘chat’ held? If not in english, who provided the translations that the Minister has released? Considering the openess to interpretation of some of the comments made, it is possible to imagine that the translation is quite important.

What was spoken about in previous ‘chats’? Has a single conversation been taken out of context? (a bit like how you crop a photo - for example, see Reith, Peter).

Sad to have so little faith in the government.

They will sniff it, bite it, circle it, throw it in the air and catch it, roll it in the dirt and declare it suspicious and that tentatively it suffices as favourite toy and food.

Much and all as I disliked him, I’m sure Peter Hollingworth, had he remained Governor-General, would not have put up with all the shenanegans by the current Prime Minister. This is still Australia, not Mugabe’s Zimbabwe …. yet.

If being a check on the manifest abuses of executive power is not one of the duties of Governor-General then why the hell does the position exist at all? Abolish the position and be done with it then just declare Mr Howard himself President-for-Life or whatever else he wants.

b.t.w. How much does that scholarship pay and what are the perks? Please sign me up for it.

BingoBangoBoingo:
Not joking - but very very very annoyed at the unnecessary and unrestrained destruction of our traditional rights and protections..

CraigMc:
Didn’t you appreciate what I said about your favorite “defender of liberty”? Stiff!

FRom what I can see pretty shallow stuff.

If you ask me, spurious sensationalist reporting without any investigation of the allegations in the dossier. Since Dateline conducted its vivisection of Morgan Tsvangirai on the eve of 2002 elections in Zimbabwe (suggesting he was involved in a plot to assassinate Mugabe), I have never trusted Dateline. Never.

That way, and at no further cost to the taxpayer, the matter can be properly investigated, assessed and judged by the blogosphere with its usual impartial, thoughtful and rigourous attention to detail, nuance, scale and scope.

He’s joking, Razor.

It’s hard to spot the satire from the delusions some days.

We now have Howard’s new anarchy/federalism policy.