UK 'terror' charge doctor thanks supporters on way home
An Indian doctor released from jail after Australian prosecutors dropped charges linking him to the failed terrorist attacks in Britain gave the thumbs-up sign on arriving in Thailand today.
Mohammed Haneef flew in from Brisbane, on his way to a reunion with his family in Bangalore, India.
“Fine. Thank you,” he told reporters at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport, when asked how it felt to be free. He said “thanks, everyone” to supporters who had backed him in his legal battle in Australia.
Australian immigration minister Kevin Andrews said yesterday that the 27-year-old doctor was free to leave the country following his release from jail on Friday, but his work visa remained cancelled.
Haneef, flanked by his cousin Imran Siddiqui and his lawyer Peter Russo, flew out of Brisbane Airport on Thai Airways flight TG 992. Russo told reporters his client was leaving Australia voluntarily and was not being deported.
“Mohammed is very homesick and is pining for his wife and child and he is anxious to get back and see his mother,” Russo said.
Haneef flew first class to Bangkok, where he did not go through immigration procedures but remained within the airport’s transit area to wait for his onward flight.
Russo said his client would not give up his fight against Andrews’ decision to revoke his work visa on character grounds, and would press ahead with a court appeal in August.
Haneef was arrested at Brisbane airport on July 2 as he was about to fly to India to see his wife and newborn daughter.
Australia’s chief prosecutor Damian Bugg said on Friday that evidence did not support the charge that Haneef provided reckless support to a terrorist organisation when he gave his mobile phone SIM card to a relative in Britain a year ago before he left for a hospital job in Australia.
That relative, Sabeel Ahmed, 26, has been charged in Britain with withholding information that could have prevented an act of terrorism.
Ahmed’s brother, Kafeel Ahmed, remains in hospital with critical burns after an explosives-laden Jeep crashed into Glasgow Airport.
Although a court hearing the charge against Haneef released him on bail, Andrews revoked his work visa based on confidential briefings by police, and he remained in jail.
Andrews said yesterday he would not reverse the decision to cancel the visa, despite mounting calls in Australia for the doctor to be allowed back to work.
The Gold Coast Hospital said on Friday that Haneef’s job was waiting for him if he regained the visa.
Peter Beattie, premier of Queensland state where Haneef has lived and worked for almost a year, said the junior doctor should now be allowed to get on with his life.
“We have to be careful when dealing with potential terrorism threats that we don’t leave the Australian way of life by the wayside,” Beattie said.
Haneef’s wife, Firdaus Arshiya, said she was looking forward to her husband’s return.
