(Sigh) The federal police are discovered to have lied to the courts in Queensland about the evidence indicting Dr Mohamed Haneef, and then endured a humungous furore. This was based partly on The Australian’s remarkable decision to post the actual police case as handed to the defence lawyers on its website. So, you might think the Murdoch press would go quiet with the allegations.

Of course not. Today’s Herald Sun proudly tells us that

“POLICE are investigating whether Mohamed Haneef was part of a conspiracy to launch a terror attack in Australia.”

Sheesh! A terror attack right here in Australia! So, are the police now hunting for possible Australian conspirators, for a plot about which they have absolutely no corroborating evidence? That would scare Australia’s Muslim community. I guess it is designed to scare the Australian public. The safety of our nation is at stake!

“Australian Federal Police are examining images of a Gold Coast building and its foundations found in documents and photographs seized in a raid on Dr Haneef’s Southport unit three weeks ago.”

Very slow investigation. Sounds like they have only now decided they might be important. And what does it actually mean? Dr Haneef had photographs of a building on his computer. If you bother to read the second half of the article, you will discover that

“The photos were of him and his family taken at the base of the prominent Gold Coast building.

Dr Haneef, a registrar at Gold Coast Hospital since September, said the images were tourist shots.

Investigators said they believed some of the photos might not be ordinary tourist snapshots.”

Lest you get frightened that a photo of you and yours next to a building might be evidence of terrorism, I should admit that the police claim they have more.

“A senior Government source confirmed yesterday that emails between Dr Haneef and his cousins, brothers Kafeel and Dr Sabeel Ahmed, were being examined as possible evidence that the Indian doctor was involved in a terror plot.”

Ah, a “senior government source” – the proverbial “unnamed official”.

It is very unlikely that the police have identified something substantive in the thousands of emails on the Dr Haneef’s computer. After all

“The laptops have heaps and heaps of conversations, emailed conversations between Haneef and his cousins, as well as some from chat rooms. It’s all in Urdu,” the source said.

“They’re not easily readable.”

You would think a gun reporter might start to smell a rat with this “we think we might have evidence but we can’t understand it” problem. So, it’s a good thing the police have more. Our unnamed source quotes an anonymous allegation.

“Police sources said investigators were looking at documents referring to the destruction of structures discovered in the raid and information that Dr Haneef was allegedly one of a group of doctors who had been learning to fly in Queensland.

They said the probe also was examining information seized in the raid that indicated the Gold Coast doctor planned to leave Australia the day before or after September 11 — the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York.”

Ah, sinister, sinister – “documents referring to the destruction of structures”? A suspect leaving on September 11th. Are we saying that Muslims anywhere in the world become terror suspects if they travel on a particular anniversary?

My favourite bit of evidence is the suggestion that he might have been learning to fly. He is a foreign doctor in Australia, for God’s sake, recruited to help deal with the shortage of medical care in the bush.

What is really strange about this article popped out by “Paula Doneman and lincoln Wright” is that the pair go on, quite properly, to list many of the salient problems about the original police case, though it does not mention any of the allegations that this is a dreadful misuse of power. (The Adelaide and Brisbane Sunday paper carries a shorter version of the story just by Paula, which tells us that Dr Haneef is registered as prisoner D17858.)

Until February, Paula Doneman was the staff Crime Editor for the Courier Mail, and an experienced reporter. Journalists frequently have to knit a story from bits and pieces of unacknowledged information; finding corroboration for these whispers is Journalism 101. But this story seems to have been spun from very, very poor quality stuff. Within hours, Doneman would be shown for a mug by the Heavy Brigade.

The plot thickened today when no less a figure than Commissioner Mick Kelty interrupted his weekend to weigh into the matter:

“Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty has dismissed as “inaccurate” reports Mohamed Haneef was involved in a plot to carry out a terrorist attack on the Gold Coast…

… But Mr Keelty today said there was no truth to the reports, and the information had not come from the AFP. “There has been significant misreporting on many aspects of this case,” Mr Keelty said in a statement.

“It is neither practical, nor the role of the AFP, to correct every wrong assertion or piece of speculation that has been put forward. “We will be taking the extraordinary step of contacting Dr Haneef’s lawyer to correct the record. “Consistent with the AFP’s position in this and all other cases, it is inappropriate to discuss or speculate on potential evidence.”

Two alternatives – the journalists produced a story which is complete crap, for which they should be ashamed, or the AFP is continuing to talk up a hatestorm against Dr Haneef, while denying it. Either way, significant portions of the Australian public now “know” that Dr Haneef was planning an attack on a prime block of Queensland flats, for September 11th. I suspect the journalists have been had rotten.

I have no idea what goes through a journalist’s mind in that situation. I doubt whether anyone at the Courier Mail cares.

Some kind of retraction from the Murdoch press might help – but no-one even assumes that is plausible, short of a libel case.

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We have not begun to press the emotional hot buttons in this story. Here is the Indian news site TimesTV:

“A wife’s appeal

Meanwhile back home in Bangalore, a 23 year old hapless Firdaus, Haneef’s wife is fighting to prove her husband’s innocence.

“My husband is being held and his release has been postponed over and over again, for no genuine fault of his,” alleged Firdaus in an exclusive interview to TIMES NOW. “Is it because he is a Muslim,” she questioned – a doubt resounding in the minds of many from the community today.

“I am just 23 years old with a 20 day old baby. He is innocent. I appeal to the prime minister to intervene and help us,” she appealed.

A trained Computer Engineer but a homemaker by choice, Firdaus dismissed the very charge that threatens to put away her husband for 15 years.

“He gave his SIM card to his relative who was also his friend. That’s what you normally do when you leave the place,” Firdaus pointed out.

Apart from nursing her infant, Firdaus has nothing much to do but to wait by the phone, every minute, every day hoping for the best from Haneef’s lawyers.

“I spoke to him when they allowed him to speak for a day. He was confident so he asked me to apply for my daughter’s passport,” said Firdaus.

But Firdaus knows that the fight for her husband’s freedom has only just begun as his lawyers file for an appeal. Now, almost used to the unexpected, she does realise that it will be some time before her family gets to be together once again.”

That is the bit that gets to me – the poor man seems to have been stuck at work in Australia while his wife has a baby by emergency caesarian in India. First chance he can get time off, he hastily organises a flight to see them and is arrested as a terrorist, because the government knew he once gave a SIM card to someone who failed to read a letter about disposing of someone else’s property which British police claim means he should have realised said someone else was about to initiate a staggeringly inept terrorist attack on Glasgow airport.

Now his shitbag accusers simply won’t give up. Did you know the Australian government has cancelled Firdaus’s visa too? Here is a transcript of a television interview with her:

“Q- Are you confident to get a fair trail in Australia?
A- Yeah.
Q- Your VISA?
A- They have cancelled it.
Q- What do you think …..fight for justice?
A- It’s OK, I don’t mind….anyway not going back there.”

Apparently, this case could go on for years. The government has split the family, and deprived them of an income – he is on unpaid leave from his job. I imagine they have done this because she would play well on the TV news, holding her tiny baby and begging the government to stop torturing her husband.

—————–

Paula Doneman said this in an interview:

“What I love about crime reporting is that while it takes you to the darkest corners of the human mind, you also see amazing feats of the human spirit, and you see ordinary people reacting in extraordinary circumstances, and that can be from police to victims, survivors, heroes, bystanders. Crime itself is a melting pot of society.”

I am a bit saddened by the lack of heroism from Dr Haneef’s neighbours and colleagues at work. How would you respond if the police arrested an Indian that you worked with? I think you might be heartened if your employer put out a press release that said the law will take its course but this man was an effective, compassionate employee and if he is found not guilty we will be delighted to take him back..

Silence from the Gold Coast Hospital, which is Gold Coast’s major teaching and referral hospital and the third largest in Queensland”. You’d think there would be a spine in there somewhere – or am I asking too much from our public culture?

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By the way, the Sunday Mail has a comment facility for its main stories. Except for this one.

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MORE: In an earlier version of this post, I thought Doneman was still at the Courier Mail. I can’t find her on the staff page at all. Read the comments for some further discussion of her resignation according to Crikey.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Austrapolitics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.