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Ministers accused of 'driving' Haneef case

Civil libertarians say any inquiry into the bungled prosecution of Dr Mohamed Haneef should focus squarely on the actions of Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.

The terrorism-related charge against the 27-year-old Indian was dropped yesterday after prosecutors abandoned their case amid revelations of mistakes in the case against him.

The outrages concerning this case include:

1. Accusations by the prosecuting lawyer that the mobile phone SIM card which Dr Haneef was alleged to have given to his second cousin in Britain was found in the burning
Jeep rammed into Glasgow airport.

[The SIM card, given to his cousin a year ago, was discovered not in Glasgow but in Liverpool.]

2. Police claimed he offered no explanation of why he tried to leave Brisbane on a one-way ticket to India.

[A transcript of his first police interview, leaked to the press by his defence team, showed he did: he wanted to see his wife, who had just given birth to their child.]

3. When the magistrate at that hearing in Brisbane, Jacqui

Payne, decided to grant the doctor conditional bail,
the government controversially intervened. Kevin Andrews, the immigration minister, decided to cancel his visa and keep him detained under immigration laws.

4. Following a story in the Queensland press Police at first refused to confirm or deny whether its officers found photographs of a prominent Gold Coast building and documents relating to the destroying of structures while searching Haneef's unit.

5. Police officers wrote the names of terrorism suspects in
Haneef's personal diary after he was taken in for questioning in
Brisbane. The paper says police then asked Haneef if he had written the names, before admitting their mistake.