The AFP has claimed it can’t release any part of its submission to the Clarke Inquiry, about its investigation of Mohammed Haneef, because of “ongoing trials in the UK”. Greg Barns asked in Crikey today:
Hang on, what trials? The only connection Dr Haneef had with the UK was that he gave his SIM Card to his cousin Sabeel Ahmed when he was about to leave the UK in 2006 to return to India. Sabeel’s brother Kafeel was involved in unsuccessful terror attacks in London and Glasgow in June last year, driving a Jeep Cherokee into the doors of Glasgow airport and setting himself alight. Kafeel later died from burns to 90% of his body, and Sabeel was charged and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in April this year for refusing to disclose information about the Glasgow attack and another failed attack in London, and a month later deported to India.
The only ongoing trials from the attempted terror attacks are those of Bilal Abdullah and Mohammed Asha, who are charged with conspiracy to murder. Abdullah was arrested in the immediate aftermath of the Glasgow attack, reportedly jumping out of the burning Jeep to attack a police officer. Asha was arrested at a roadblock some time later. Both are scheduled for trial in October this year.
Now, I’m no lawyer, but it’s plausible that the AFP submission to the Clarke inquiry contains material that could potentially upset a judge hearing the cases against Abdullah and Asha were it to appear spread across the Daily Mail. But that assumes it would indeed be spread across the Daily Mail. Couldn’t the relevant judge in the UK order the suppression of the material coming out of the Clarke inquiry in the British media?
Furthermore, I still struggle to see why the material relating to the above cases is so closely interwined with the AFP’s submission to the Clarke Inquiry that not only can the AFP not release the entirety of the submission, it can’t even release an unclassified version with the potentially prejudicial bits blanked out. Maybe I’m missing something important, but it just reeks of political convenience. The connection would want to be pretty compelling if Keelty doesn’t want to, at some future time when it all comes out, look like a self-serving tool who abused secrecy to temporarily protect his, and his organization’s, own backside.
“The connection would want to be pretty compelling if Keelty doesn’t want to, at some future time”
Keelty will be long gone by then.
Anyhoo, let’s look at the possibilities
(a) Haneef is somehow connected to these two chaps who are on trisl; or
(b) the AFP is using the trials as an excuse to stop the release of material that will make them look like donkeys, or worse.
The choice quote from Mick Kelty was that “if you look at the redacted version, it doesn’t make any sense”.
Somehow I suspect the unredacted version doesn’t make sense either.
Maybe it’s already been fed to the shredder?
If any journo has the guts to go and ask Scotland Yard I think things might get interesting.
Where’s Foyle and his connections when you need ‘em?
Fixed.
If it is an arse covering exercise, it’s a fairly futile one. What sealed it for me was the release of the purported transcript of the damning exchange between Haneef and his relly. As was noted at the time it was possibly the dodgiest Babelfish translation ever. To seriously expect to put it up and not be laughed out of court indicates incompetence bordering on the criminal.
Thanks Jacques.
The Intellectual Bogan
I think it gets very very serious when you take a look a the number of people assigned to the ‘case’, take a guestimate at the number of them who overlooked the translation, and realise the cultural intelligence offered by the AFP. In 2008 I’d prefer 2008 quality cops, not the ones from the 1950′s, to be on the job.
My point exactly. Not one of the hands that transcript passed through can have had the slightest clue of how badly automatic translation engines can mangle text. That alone is sufficiently damning. When you add that to the fact that it was necessary to use a translation engine in the first place (is it really too much to expect that someone who speaks the suspect’s native language be assigned to a case?), it really does raise some very serious questions indeed.
This is basic stuff. And the AFP publically stuffed it up worse than my 9 yo daughter could have done, with no apparent realisation of what a bunch of dicks it would make them look. What does that say about how competently they’re dealing with the more sophisticated workings of modern policing that occur out of the public gaze.
As if the Daily Fail is competant enough at that journalism thingy to pick up this in the first place, without someone sending it to them…!