Wednesday 18 July 2007

"Daughter's Birthday" : code word for "Glorious martyrdom operation"?

The Australian government says it will treat Mohammed Haneef as a terrorist
and keep him in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.

The Indian doctor under probe for his suspected role in the UK terror plot
will have access to television, literature and radio but not a computer.

(Source: NDTV.com)1

This is why the mild mannered, generous Indian doctor has to be confined for 23 hours a day:

The details the government used to back a decision to revoke his visa on
character grounds include - that he chatted online with the second suspect
Sabeel Ahmed about his daughter's birth on June 26, three days before the failed
plot. (2)
Come on. These charges are bullshit. Cancelling his visa was officious, callous and premature. Aussies are always prattling about the little man and standing up to the forces of officialdom. Is that a 'Whites-only' privilege?

Sabeel Ahmed was not the only person Haneef talked to around the time of the aborted terror attacks. He also says that he tried to contact the British police when he hear that his relatives were involved:

Mohammed Haneef tried to telephone a police officer in Britain after second
cousin Sabeel Ahmed was arrested but the calls went unanswered, the Indian
doctor has told Australian investigators.

Haneef, arrested at Brisbane airport on July 2 with a one-way ticket to
India, told the police that he had mentioned Sabeel’s arrest to his
father-in-law in a conversation that day, according to a transcript of the
interview leaked to The Australian.
...

“He (my father-in-law) said to me, ‘Why are you worried about that?’ So
I just said, ‘Keep calm, if we have not done anything, then just nothing to
worry’.”

His father-in-law asked Haneef to call British police “and let them
know whatever’s going on”, so the doctor repeatedly tried to telephone one of
the police officers, Tony Webster, in Britain to explain the SIM card issue, he
told investigators.

(Source: Calcutta Telegraph)3

That article gives a good account of Haneef's side of the story. Adds to the growing impression that this man has been treated very shoddily.

1 "Haneef to be treated as 'terrorist,'" NDTV Correspondent, Wednesday, July 18, 2007. (http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070019336&ch=7/18/2007%202:14:00%20PM)
2 - ibid
3 - "I tried to call UK cop: Haneef," Calcutta Telegraph, 17th July, 2007. (
http://telegraphindia.com/1070718/asp/frontpage/story_8073753.asp)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting to know.

Unsurprising

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