Col Rouge

Haneef's wife is back where she came from, India. Haneef was picked up leaving Australia to go to India, when he is eventually deported he will be sent to India.

Don't you find this ironic?

You correctly point out that his detention was under judicial review, the AFP decided not to apply for a further extention of time as expected, they charged him. What was the conflict of interest that may have disqualified the magistrate? We will never know.

A judge reviewed the evidence presented and granted bail. Again fair judicial process. (David Eastman was granted bail for murdering AFP deputy commissioner Winchester as well).

So its OK to have people charged with murder on bail but we have to lock up someone who was such a threat to Australia that he was about to leave.

The man is obviously intelligent, you don't get to be a doctor held in high regard by your peers and patients by being a dummy. If he knew anything about the UK bomb attempt don't you think he would have left Australia before the failed terrorist actions?

Something stinks, as it usually does when Kevin Andrews is involved.

"Ten guilty men" let go can create bloody chaos, murder whereas one "innocent"man charged will eventually be freed and will not create such disorder. How can people be so thick?
Looking at the horrors that have occurred overseas and to our own in Bali, I am glad to see every suspect given attention.
So he gave his relations his Sim Card, he had lived with them, surely he would have had some idea of their aims.
There are too many in this country who would rather see Australians suffer grief than have their owned screwed idiology upset.
Once they would have been called fifth columnists.

Whichever way the government had jumped on this one it would have been criticised - and probably by the same people who say that all we need to do to cease being a terrorist target is get out of Iraq. Really?
Australians tend to believe that we are not a terrorist target, that we are insulated from all the nasties in this world. These things do not happen in Australia...or do they? Could they?
When people like Lex Lasry and Julian Burnside get air time to criticise the government they do so knowing that they can say pretty much anything they like. They are QCs. People will believe almost anything they have to say. They carefully avoid telling people that they are not in full possession of the facts - or lack of them. They have not heard the evidence - or lack of it. Neither has the writer of this article.
One thing we can be pretty certain of however there is that there is more to this than a ten month old partly expired SIM card. To suggest, as one writer in the Australian did, that it is akin to handing over left over time on a parking ticket is ridiculous. These were Haneef's cousins. He had lived and worked with them. Did he really know nothing about them? The man may well be innocent but the current charge may also be nothing more than a holding charge and there may be other charges to come. We have not been told and we probably will never be told.
Those endeavouring to pressure the government though would be the first to complain if a terrorist act was committed here.

It should be noted that the Crown has not alleged that Haneef is a member of any terrorist group, nor that he had any knowledge of any planned crimes. He's just "associated" with them. Like, say, if some guy flips out and shoots a dozen people in the mall, his brother's associated with him.

But suppose Haneef were actually an accused terrorist: I fail to see why someone who's accused of planning a murder for money or passion can be given the presumption of innocence, but someone who's accused of planning a murder for political reasons can't be. Or do you guys support abolishing the presumption of innocence for everyone, whatever the accusation? Shall we abolish juries, too? After all, the Minister knows best, yes?

Some people are very keen to toss aside their liberties. I suggest a visit to the terrorists' main supporters in Saudi Arabia to see how you like a life without jury trials or presumption of innocence. Those who want to deny the accused their rights under law are far closer to the actual terrorists in their ideas than they are to civilised Australians. Terrorists don't believe in fair trials, either.

Their seems to be more that a 'Guilt by Association' hint comes from some of the good people on here, not a healthy attitude for a country such as ours. And Col Rouge, "prospective terrorist supporter", well if he's "prospective", why is he in not in "prospective" custody?. You may well be a prospective Laureate,better get that prospective poem into prospect.

There is more than a hint here that the process itself hasn't helped.

>>the AFP decided not to apply for a further extention of time as expected, they charged him<<

Investigations like this cannot be easy, there are a number of dots to join, and they all have to be carefully examined. It isn't a matter of "guilt by association", but "suspicion by association", and we would be poorly served if we allowed our police to do a half-baked job.

It is of course possible that the AFP considered it beyond the bounds of probability that he would be given bail, so charged him instead of applying for additional investigation time. After all, from a PR viewpoint the headlines would become increasingly unpleasant, the longer he was detained without charge.

So the balancing act was i) ask for an extension and face increasingly difficult headlines vs. ii) place a charge of sufficient seriousness that bail would be unlikely.

They chose to place the charge, which prima facie (his cousin looks as though he were up to his neck in the failed bombings) was sufficient to label him a potential terrorist threat for whom bail would not be appropriate.

This was of course a win-win stragetgy, since if bail were not granted, the ball then landed firmly in the Government's court.

The Government was then faced with the choice whether to let him wander around - without passport - and take the risk that he would do a runner, or take the action they did and face the inevitable backlash.

A couple of years ago they might have been able to present this as a plus - strong security and all that - but given that they have lost almost their entire stock of credibility, it has turned into a lose-lose for them.