Australian
Government Launches Unprecedented Attacks On Lawyers
As Haneef Case Falls Apart
By Mike Head
25 July 2007
WSWS.org
With its prosecution of Indian
Muslim doctor Mohamed Haneef on a terrorism charge in disarray, the
Howard government has responded by launching unprecedented attacks on
his lawyers, and the legal profession at large, accusing them of waging
a campaign to undermine the anti-terrorism laws.
Speaking on radio on Monday,
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock denied that the case was now a “mess”.
Instead, he accused Haneef’s barrister, Stephen Keim QC and other
lawyers of being “determined to try and bring it [the law] into
disrepute”.
The assault came after the
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty was forced
to publicly retract the latest police-government smear against Haneef.
Last Sunday, the Murdoch media ran sensational front-page reports that
police had evidence that Haneef had planned to blow up the 77-storey
Q1 tower on the Gold Coast, reputed to be the world’s tallest
residential building. Later the same day, Keelty admitted the story
was false, adding: “We will be taking the extraordinary step of
contacting Dr Haneef’s lawyers to correct the record”.
The police chief denied that
the story’s source had been the police, leaving the obvious question:
from where did it come?
Ruddock went on to declare:
“There are certainly some people in the legal profession, particularly
those who come out of the civil liberties groups, who have a view anything
goes, and you see that in the nature of the comments they make.”
Ruddock’s comments
constitute a blatant attempt to intimidate and vilify lawyers carrying
out their legal responsibilities to vigorously defend their clients—whether
charged with “terrorism” or any other offence. They are
also aimed at silencing those lawyers who, like other members of society,
are exercising their democratic right to oppose the barrage of “anti-terrorism”
legislation introduced at federal and state level over the past five
years.
Keim has received strong
support throughout the legal profession for publicly releasing the transcript
of a police interview with his client, which helped expose key fabrications
in the police case. Among other things, the transcript revealed that
the police had wrongly told a court that Haneef had once lived with
two cousins in Britain, who were subsequently arrested in connection
with last month’s failed bomb blasts in London and Glasgow.
A day after the transcript
was made public, the central police-government allegation against Haneef
collapsed, namely, that his former mobile phone SIM card had been found
in the jeep that was rammed into the Glasgow Airport terminal. British
police sources told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that
the card was found, eight hours after the Glasgow incident, hundreds
of kilometres away in Liverpool.
On the basis of the SIM card
allegation, the AFP charged Haneef with “recklessly” providing
resources to a terrorist organisation. A Crown prosecutor even told
a magistrate that the plot entailed the card being destroyed in the
Glasgow blast, leaving no trace of Haneef’s involvement. The government
and the media trumpeted this allegation for five days. Now Keim has
demanded to know why the AFP, who knew the allegation was false, did
nothing to correct the public record.
On Monday, Keelty had to
issue yet another “extraordinary” statement, this time denying
a report in the Australian newspaper that the interview transcript showed
that the police had written Haneef’s cousins’ contact details
in the back of his diary and then interrogated him about the diary entry.
In the interview, Haneef immediately objected that the handwriting was
not his. Keelty denied that police had “made any notations or
additions” to the diary, but refused to comment further, saying
the matter was “before the court”. Clearly, the issue remains:
did the police attempt to frame Haneef by falsifying his diary?
British police have told
the ABC they are unlikely to seek Haneef’s extradition to face
charges, indicating that they have no evidence connecting him to the
London or Glasgow attacks. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, British
police have blamed the Australian police for the false SIM card allegation
and voiced concern at the political pressure placed on the AFP by the
Howard government.
Despite the disintegration
of the case against him, Haneef remains in solitary confinement, 23
hours a day, in a Queensland jail, where he has been classified as a
“terrorist” by Premier Peter Beattie’s state Labor
government. A magistrate ordered his release on bail after he had been
detained for nearly two weeks without charge, but the federal government
effectively overturned the court order by revoking his visa and ordering
him into immigration detention. The Indian doctor was allowed his first
visit by a relative, Imran Siddiqui, yesterday and saw the first pictures
of his new baby daughter, whom he was trying to travel to see in India
on July 2, when he was first arrested at Brisbane airport.
Government under fire
There are clear indications
that the government is becoming increasingly desperate over the Haneef
case. Last Sunday, Fairfax newspapers quoted “several senior government
sources” saying the government was planning to deport the young
doctor to contain the political fallout. One source said: “Another
snafu special from commissioner plod Mick Keelty. There is growing sentiment
that we should cut our losses and deport him [Haneef].”
Ruddock could clear the way
for Haneef’s deportation by cancelling the Criminal Justice Certificate
that he issued when the visa was revoked. The certificate meant Haneef
would be detained for trial, which could be up to two years away, rather
than deported. Any deportation now, however, could be in contempt of
court, because Haneef has challenged his visa revocation in the Federal
Court, and a hearing is due on August 8. Even more seriously, it would
confirm that the allegations against Haneef were a concoction from the
start. Why otherwise would the government deport a man it had charged
with terrorism?
Ruddock and Prime Minister
John Howard have repeatedly claimed that they have no responsibility
for Haneef’s treatment, and that the case is simply in the hands
of the police and the courts. Time and again, however, Ruddock, Howard
and other ministers have made prejudicial comments against Haneef and
declared that his arrest was a “wake-up call” to the Australian
public that the “war on terror” must be continued indefinitely.
One revealing glimpse of
the government’s behind-the-scenes role emerged last week. Writing
in the Sydney Morning Herald, Craig Skehan and Jacob Saulwick reported
that the editor-in-chief of the Australian, Chris Mitchell, received
an anguished phone call about 6.30 a.m. on July 19 from Keelty about
the newspaper’s publication of the police interview transcript.
Mitchell told the Herald:
“Keelty said ‘There is all hell breaking loose with the
government about this and I need to be able to say it did not come from
us [the police]’. And I said OK.” The episode provides a
picture of the real relations between the government and the supposedly
“independent” police chief, with Keelty apparently receiving
direct calls from government officials demanding that he immediately
investigate the leaking of the document.
The Law Council of Australia,
the peak body representing the country’s 50,000 legal practitioners,
has issued three media statements since Haneef was first arrested on
July 2. The first attacked the terrorism laws that allowed Haneef to
be held without charge, saying they permitted “indefinite detention
by stealth”. The second accused the government of “undermining
Australia’s judicial system” and of “political opportunism”
in revoking Haneef’s visa, violating “the principle that
every citizen is innocent until proven guilty”.
The third statement, issued
on July 22, called on Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews to give Haneef
a “bridging visa” to allow him to live and work in the community
while he awaited trial. “After hearing evidence and robust arguments
from both sides, a court has already decided that Dr Haneef is not a
flight risk and is not a threat to the community,” Law Council
president Tim Bugg declared. “Surely on that basis Kevin Andrews
can be satisfied that a bridging visa should be issued.” Bugg
added that the only “proper purpose” of Andrews’s
cancellation of the visa was not to detain Haneef but to deport him,
and that was not possible in the near future.
Rudd criticises Beattie
Despite the exposure of the
fabrications at the heart of the government’s case, Labor leader
Kevin Rudd yesterday reiterated Labor’s “in principle”
support for the police and the Howard government. After receiving a
new government briefing, he said: “This matter, complex as it
is, has been handled appropriately by the authorities. I mean it. I’ve
said it from day one.”
Rudd rebuked his Labor colleague,
Queensland Premier Beattie, for criticising the federal police as “keystone
cops”. Beattie had made the comment while expressing concern that
the “inconsistencies” in the police case were fuelling public
disquiet over the terrorism legislation. “The level of cynicism
which is developing here is going to continue, and then that undermines
public confidence in the anti-terrorism laws,” Beattie told the
media.
Since 2001, all the state
Labor governments, including Beattie’s, have been Howard’s
partners in the so-called “war on terror”, referring their
constitutional powers to Canberra to introduce the draconian anti-terrorism
laws, and passing their own matching legislation. Likewise, federal
Labor has voted for every piece of national legislation. These measures
include vast powers for the police, intelligence and military, four
different forms of detention without trial, executive powers to unilaterally
outlaw organisations and semi-secret trials, all bound up with a definition
of terrorism that is so broad that it covers many areas of political
free speech.
Beattie’s fears echo
the views expressed in several editorials in the Murdoch press, warning
the Howard government that its “botched” handling of the
case is already eroding the legitimacy of the terror laws in the eyes
of the public. At the same time, Beattie is trying to lay the ground
for Labor to distance itself somewhat from the Haneef debacle. He is
now calling for a Senate inquiry into the handling of the case.
Murdoch’s concerns
were articulated in today’s Australian by Janet Albrechtsen, a
fervent right-wing backer of the anti-terror measures. She wrote: “One
need not venture anywhere near the intellectual wasteland of civil libertarians
and their academic, legal and media boosters to believe that there is
something dreadfully wrong with the unravelling case against detained
terrorist suspect Mohamed Haneef. If the Howard government fails to
grasp that the growing unease over the handling of the case against
Haneef is not confined to the lunatic libertarians, it risks undermining
the case for anti-terrorism laws, destroying the government’s
credibility on national security and weakening its claim on the next
election.”
Rudd and Labor’s federal
leaders, however, are determined to remain at one with the Howard government.
Rudd’s rebuke of Beattie came after Howard branded Beattie’s
criticism of the federal police “disgraceful” and “outrageous”.
Rudd said terrorism was a serious matter for any prime minister or would-be
prime minister. “When it comes to the protective measures adopted
by our security forces, we have to be hardline and robust.”
These remarks demonstrate
that Rudd’s posture is not simply driven by supposed electoral
considerations, but by Labor’s determination to fully exercise
the police-state powers contained in Howard’s anti-terrorism laws
if it wins office later this year.
Every leading federal Labour
figure has lined up behind Rudd’s stance. Last weekend alone,
shadow ministers Wayne Swan, Julia Gillard, Lindsay Tanner and Tania
Plibersek all made statements of support for the police and government
operation against Haneef.
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