Marilyn
You said “It is more than clear than a young man working in Brisbane was not in a burning jeep in Glasgow and even if an expired sim card was in the jeep the young doctor still could not have committed any crime.”

If the sim card was given to Kafeel to help with avoiding electronic surveillance then that would be conspiracy to assist in a terrorist related offence. That IS serious.

We haven’t seen any evidence that suggests that this was what Haneef was attempting to do? But that’s not what you said.

The Howard gov’t have made a real mess of this situation, no doubt. I hope they lose the next election

“The Orwells in England”, why not go the whols hog, surely they are Nazi’s aren’t they marilyn. Your hysterical ranting weakens your case with everyone except those who already share your far left views. There are very good reason why terrorist suspects aren’t always told what evidence they are being held on. The most obvious is that it denies those accomplices out there any knowledge of the police/security forces investigation.

The perpetrator Kafeel Ahmed, is the brother of Sabeel and the second cousin of Haneef. Who cares if he’s nearly dead? Are we meant to feel sorry for him? He tried to kill as many men women and children as he could.

Marilyn you are an expert on the effects of explosives? You think they should be treated more leniently because they are inept? Their intent was to kill as many people as they could as well as damaging/destroying the airport terminals. It doesn’t matter that they weren’t very good at it.

This case has damaged the credibilty of the government and its agencies. Haneef has been convicted in court of public opinion on a thin tissue of lies selectively leaked by the government.

Marilyn wasn't the first blogger or letter writer to compare Haneef's situation with a eastern european soviet era nightmare or a Kafkaesque scenario. Haneef is innocent of the charges laid out in the media of the last month.

This is looking seriously bad for the government. If it turns out that all that that Haneef did was give his SIM card to a relative before he travelled overseas, and that neither the SIM card nor Haneef were in the least bit involved in the attempted bombing in Edinburgh, then Kevin Andrews is going to have a lot of explaining to do. He was very unwise to get so directly involved by cancelling Haneef's visa.

As I'm sure you all know, when the Spanish government tried to exploit a terrorist attack to its own ends, the voters turned on it ferociously. If it turns out that KA and JH have tried to do the same thing here, then whatever chance they have of being re-elected will disappear into thin air.

In opinion polls, the government performs poorly in every criteria except the economy and security. The economy isn't looking too flash at the moment with four interest rates (or is it more?) since the 'interest rate' election. If they screw up security as well they will have nothing. We may well see them reduced to a handful of seats.

I don’t know who on earth you are, but you sound like the sort of person we really don’t need in this country.
You make light of the terrorism threat, but give no reasons why you think we should just ignore it…and you sound as though you might be an escapee from one of the many Labor blogs, with your Left wing rants and inane ‘rodent’ references.
John Howard is confused , you say? Well, confusion and a muddled mind are the hallmarks of your own nasty little piece.
You want bail for terrorist suspects, do you? Well, I hope it’s your children and not mine on the spot when one of those whose rights you cherish above those of Australian citizens, decides to blow up some innocent Australians one of these days.
The unsavoury vision you speak of is our government's effort to protect Australians from terrorism.
I think when you’re thinking ‘unsavory’, you could look a little closer to home.
I’m especially hoping Howard wins the election, because , as you inform us so eloquently, John Howard’s Australia is not for you.
Well…that’s good news …you might find it more comfortable elsewhere.

How about this real. In the 60,000 or so years that Australia has had human beings living on it we can safely say that not one person has been blown up by a sim card left in London.

In fact not one person has ever been blown up in Australia by any muslim terrorist.

That is why we should ignore the drivel, not to mention we managed to survive for 30 years or so with the threat of nuclear wipeout without behaving like snivelling cowards.

Hmmm..... A fairly strong response from 'real'. I think 'real', you've let your own (no doubt deeply held) beliefs get in the way of a rational opinion on this matter (unless you're trolling. I'll assume you're not).

The thing is that Australians *do* take terrorism seriously. The problem for the government is that there is an increasing amount of suspicion that maybe the government doesn't take it seriously. Maybe we don't know everything there is to know about the Haneef affair but if all that happened was that two years ago, he gave a SIM card to a relative before leaving overseas, and if the SIM card had nothing to do with the attempted bombing, then Kevin Andrew's intervention looks seriously dodgy. In fact it looks like *he's* not taking terrorism seriously and is playing politics it.

This Haneef affair really troubles me. On 'Insiders' on the weekend Matt Price made the point that if the situation were reversed (say an Australian backpacker were treated like this in India) we'd be frothing with outrage. Especially with bizarre events like the police scribbling terrorist names in the diary. (I mean, what was that about? Was it incompetence or something more sinister?)

Then there's the matter of jurisdiction. If a crime was committed, it was committed in the UK, not here. If the brits want him, then let them extradite him.

Anyway, I think it is very important that we see the evidence against Haneef very soon, or that he gets out on bail, especially since, at least on the face of it, Haneef hasn't done anything illegal in Australia.