Blazing car crashes at Glasgow airport

[levin]

An Indian doctor charged in Australia with supporting terrorism has denied any prior knowledge of the failed car bomb attacks in Britain and told police he was not involved in any plot.

The doctor, Mohamed Haneef, also said he tried four times to contact British police after learning his mobile phone SIM card had been linked to the June attacks, but his calls went unanswered.

"I'm clear from any of the things. I haven't done any of the crimes. I don't want to spoil my name and my profession," Haneef said.

The comments were in a 141-page record of a police interview with Haneef, conducted on July 3, the day after he was detained as he was about to leave Australia for India.

The Australian newspaper published the leaked transcript on its website on Wednesday.

The leak has angered the Australian government and the Australian Federal Police, who said the publication of the interview would undermine court proceedings.

Haneef is charged with recklessly supporting terrorism by providing a relative in Britain with his mobile phone SIM card.

He has not entered a plea to the charges, but is seeking to overturn a government decision to cancel his visa and keep him locked up in an immigration detention centre after a magistrate earlier said he could be released on bail.

Police in Britain have charged two people over the attacks, including Haneef's cousin Sabeel Ahmed, 26.

Another cousin, Kafeel Ahmed, is under police guard in hospital after being badly burned when a jeep was driven into an airport terminal in Glasgow and set ablaze on June 30.


UNDERMINES PROSECUTION

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the leak undermined the legal process and could represent a contempt of court.

"It has undermined the prosecution," Keelty told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"We now have a published document that has provided information that should never have been provided until a court has an opportunity to hear it for the first time and test the veracity of that evidence."

Haneef's lawyer, Stephen Keim, said in a statement he had released the transcript of the documents to the newspaper, and said he had no legal obligation to keep the transcript secret.

In the July 3 interview, Haneef is quizzed about his time working as a young doctor in Britain, financial transactions between Australia and Britain, and how his mobile phone SIM card ended up with Sabeel.

Haneef said he had a month left on his mobile phone contract when he left Britain for Australia in July 2006, so he gave the SIM card to his cousin, who he said was planning to change the account into his own name.

After the Glasgow attack, Haneef said he was phoned by Sabeel's mother, who told him of the arrest and that a British investigating agent wanted to speak to him about his mobile phone.

Haneef said he then tried to ring the British agent, but his calls went unanswered.

Asked why he tried to contact the British investigators, Haneef said: "Because she said to me that there was something wrong with your mobile phone, someone was misusing the thing".

Haneef said that during his time in Britain, he also met with Kafeel Ahmed, and stayed with him briefly at Cambridge University in mid 2004 and again in November 2004.

Haneef said he had no interest in politics, and did not want to talk about the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He said he had never received any weapons training, and had never been asked to consider involvement in a Jihad.

Asked how he felt about the attacks in Britain, Haneef replied: "Every drop of blood is human blood. And I feel for every human being.”

[Cruise4]

Sandra Laville, crime correspondent
Saturday July 21, 2007
The Guardian


A transcript of the interrogation of a doctor charged in Australia in connection with the London and Glasgow terror attacks reveals inconsistencies in police statements about the case.
Publication of the 142-page transcript has fuelled growing concerns over the apparent lack of evidence against Mohammed Haneef, a 27-year-old Indian doctor who was arrested in Australia as he was about to board a flight to Bangalore on Monday July 2, two days after the failed car bomb attacks in London and Scotland.

In police affidavits filed with a court in Brisbane, officers stated that throughout two days of questioning Dr Haneef gave no explanation as to why his ticket to India was one way. But in the interview transcripts Dr Haneef, who has been charged with providing support to a terrorist organisation, told officers he was flying to Bangalore via Singapore to see his wife and new baby, who had just been born by caesarean section. He said his father-in-law bought him the single ticket and he was planning to buy his return ticket in Bangalore with his own money.
The doctor also gave a full explanation of why he had given his mobile phone Sim card over a year ago to Sabeel Ahmed, one of the men subsequently charged in Britain in connection with the attacks. He said he and Dr Ahmed, who are second cousins, were living together in the UK while studying medicine.

When in July last year Dr Haneef finished his contract at the Royal Liverpool hospital his Sim card still had a month of time on the contract. Dr Ahmed asked for the card, saying he would transfer the registration to his own name when the contract expired, he says in the transcript. Dr Ahmed was charged last week in London with having information that might have prevented the attacks.

Revelations from the transcripts come as a former chairman of the National Crime Authority in Australia condemned the police investigation into Haneef's alleged part in the plot as "incompetent".

Peter Faris, a barrister, told the Australian newspaper: "I think this is fast approaching the situation where there is not a reasonable prospect of a conviction unless there's some other evidence that we don't know about." Dr Haneef, who left the UK last summer to work as a registrar at the Gold Coast hospital, was arrested by police at Brisbane airport on Monday July 2 as he allegedly attempted to leave the country on a one-way ticket.

A 50-page government dossier outlining the case against Dr Haneef released in Sydney claims that he had been in regular contact with his cousins, Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed, who are both in custody in Britain. But in the interview Dr Haneef told how he had made repeated attempts to contact anti-terrorist police in Britain to explain his connections to the Ahmeds after the failed bomb attacks.

He said he had received a telephone call from Dr Ahmed's mother on Saturday June 30 saying that her son had been arrested and the police wanted to talk to Dr Haneef. She gave Dr Haneef the police officer's number and name. He told Australian police he tried four times to contact the officer, but his calls were unanswered.

In London yesterday the fourth person to be charged in connection with the failed car bomb attacks appeared in court.

Mohammed Jamil Asha, 26, who is also a doctor, was remanded in custody after appearing at City of Westminster magistrates court. He is accused of conspiring with Bilal Abdullah, Kafeel Ahmed and "others unknown" to cause explosions. Dr Asha, from Newcastle under Lyme, is due to appear at the Old Bailey on July 27. He was arrested on the M6 motorway in the wake of the attacks.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2131638,00.html

[TonyGosling]

'Prejudice' warning to bomb jury

The trial is due to get under way at Woolwich Crown Court on Thursday
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7659159.stm

A jury trying two doctors accused of attempted car bombings in London and at Glasgow airport should put aside any prejudice or beliefs, a judge has said.

Bilal Abdulla, 29, from Glasgow, and Mohammed Asha, 28, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs, deny conspiracy to murder and to cause explosions in 2007.

Jury selection has begun at Woolwich Crown Court ahead of the trial's start.

The judge said prosecutors claimed the men were "terrorists motivated by... a fundamental form of Islam".

Hospital doctors

Mr Justice Mackay said, if selected, the jurors must base any decisions solely on the evidence they hear and "not based on any prejudices, beliefs or personal opinions the members of the jury may have".

The judge said the court would hear of attempts to explode two car bombs in central London and a suicide bombing attempt at Glasgow airport the following day. A third man, Kafeel Ahmed, died in the Glasgow airport incident, he said.

He told potential jurors that both the defendants were NHS hospital doctors. Mr Abdulla worked at the Royal Alexandra in Paisley, near Glasgow................

[TonyGosling]

Murdoch's version of today's events.

Profiles of the men accused of car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow
Kafeel Ahmed


Kafeel Ahmed studied mechanical engineering in India. He died aged 28 from burns after the Glasgow attack
Steve Bird

Kafeel Ahmed

Kafeel Ahmed was the son of two doctors and had studied mechanical engineering at university in his native India before travelling to Northern Ireland to take a masters degree in aeronautical engineering at Queens College, Belfast, between 2001 and 2003.

In 2004 he went to Cambridge to take a PhD at Anglia Ruskin University. The doctorate was due to be completed in 2007 but Ahmed was forced to abandon his studies and return to India in June that year because of illness in his family.

The student was allowed to continue his PhD on a part-time basis while based in Bangalore. He visited Britain in September 2006 and then in May 2007 for the attacks.

It was while in Cambridge in 2004 and 2005 that it is claimed he became good friends with the two defendants, who were studying medicine in the town. Ahmed’s brother, Sabeel, was also studying to become a doctor in Cambridge.

Ahmed’s life revolved around his religion. He lived at a flat in Gilbert Road owned by a charitable trust called The Islamic Academy. The property was rented out to "professional men" and had a prayer room where all four men were said to pray together.

The prosecution claim that he used the name "KingKafeel" on an internet instant messenger system used to communicate with Mr Abdulla.

He died aged 28 from burns four weeks after the Jeep laden with petrol and gas canisters was driven into the terminal building at Glasgow Aiport.

Ahmed's brother, Sabeel, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey earlier this year to an offence connected to the bombings but was not involved in the plot.

Sabeel Ahmed worked at the Warrington Hospital at the time of the attack and lived in shared accommodation in Ramilies Road, Liverpool.

Bilal Abdulla

Bilal Talal Abdul Samad Abdulla was born in Iraq and began studying for his medical career in Baghdad.

He graduated in medicine from the University of Baghdad in 2004 and then moved to Cambridge where he to took the exam to allow him to work and train as a doctor in the UK.

It was while living in Chesterton Road in Cambridge that the prosecution claim he became friends with Ahmed, who lived nearby, and Mr Asha.

After visiting Iraq between May and July 2006, Mr Abdulla joined the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Scotland, as a junior house officer in general surgery. He lived at hospital accommodation in its halls of residence in Corsebar Road in Paisley. The court heard that he gave hospital authorities Mr Asha’s name as the friend to be contacted in the event of an emergency.

Mr Abdulla’s passport shows that he had visited Iraq in May and July 2006, shortly before he took up his post in Scotland. It is claimed that the war in Iraq at this time provided the “principal motivation” for him becoming involved in the terrorist attacks in Britain.

Described in court as a “strictly observant Muslim”, he was well known for being knowledgeable about the Koran.

Mr Abdulla, who speaks and reads Arabic, used the names "drbilalabdu" and "osaidosaid" during internet messenger conversations with Ahmed, the prosecution claim.

Mohammed Asha

Mohammed Jamil Abdelqader Asha was born in Saudi Arabia where he was recognised as a gifted child.

The strictly observant Muslim won a scholarship to read medicine at the University of Amman in Jordan. He was to become known in his profession as an “extremely talented doctor and a man of considerable potential”, the jury was told.

He came to Britain in 2003 and trained at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, where it is claimed that he met Mr Abdulla, Ahmed and his brother, Sabeel.

After graduating in Jordan in 2004, he trained at the Prince Phillip Hospital in Llanelli in Wales before moving back to England and studying at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in Shropshire in August 2005.

At the time of the attacks he was working as a senior house officer in the neurology department at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire.

He lives with his wife and a son called Anas, now two, at a rented property in Newcastle-Under-Lyme. He gave his co-defendant’s name as a referee on the tenancy agreement for the property in Sunningdale Grove.

Mr Asha, also described as an “observant Muslim”, and his family had been due to go on holiday in Jordan in mid-July last year, before the doctor took up his next medical post in neurosurgery at the Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry.

[Disco_Destroyer]

Wish I was on the Jury
'Why was the fire not put out in seconds using Foam as all aircraft fires are??'

[Mark Gobell]

Australia says sorry to doctor wrongly detained on terrorism charges

Substantial payout for Mohamed Haneef after government admits mistake in linking him to attack on Glasgow airport

* Alexandra Topping
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 December 2010 16.47 GMT

Mohamed Haneef Mohamed Haneef, who has received a full apology from the Australian government. Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images

The Australian government issued a formal apology today to an Indian doctor accused and detained on terrorism charges three years ago, saying it hoped he could now get on with his life.

Mohamed Haneef was wrongly detained on terrorism-related charges related to an attack on Glasgow international airport in 2007. This week he received a substantial payout from the government after it admitted that it had been mistaken and that Hanneef was innocent.

In a statement, the Australian federal police said: "The AFP acknowledges that it was mistaken and that Dr Haneef was innocent of the offence of which he was suspected. The commonwealth apologises and hopes that the compensation to be paid to Dr Haneef will mark the end of an unfortunate chapter and allow Dr Haneef to move forward with his life and career."

In the weeks following the attack on Glasgow airport, in which a 4x4 loaded with propane canisters was driven into the glass doors of the airport terminal before being set alight, Haneef – who was in Australia on a work visa – was arrested and charged, and his visa cancelled.

Haneef is distantly related to Kafeel Ahmed and Sabeel Ahmed, who were involved in the 2007 attack, but police admitted that there was no evidence linking him to the attack.

The government acknowledged that its actions towards Dr Haneef had created "serious consequences for him and his family".

Dr Haneef's lawyer Rod Hodgson said the apology reaffirmed his client's innocence and follows the resolution of the doctor's compensation claim earlier this week.

"We congratulate the government for recognising an injustice done on the watch of the previous government and for this public apology and declaration of innocence," he said in a statement.

"The apology means a lot to our client."

The terms of the settlement reached between the government and Haneef remain undisclosed, but it is understood that the doctor has received a full apology.

Hodgson added that former immigration minister Kevin Andrews refused to offer his own apology.

"On one side we have ASIO [Australia's national security service], the Queensland Police Service, the findings of the Clarke Inquiry, the AFP and the current Australian government all prepared to declare that Dr Haneef is innocent," he said.

"Mr Andrews continues to isolate himself by his aggressive refusals to make any form of apology for his role. Australians will make up their own minds about how this reflects on Mr Andrews's judgement and humanity."