REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Saturday, July 28, 2007

A BRISBANE magistrate’s words in dismissing the entire criminal case against Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef were simply stated at the end of a brief but powerful hearing in court. “The charge is dismissed and the defendant is discharged.”

But hours after the announcement in the Commonwealth Magistrates Court, Dr Haneef’s liberty was still in doubt. He was driven away from jail, but his lawyers said they expected him to be placed in residential detention pending a decision on his visa status.

Dr Haneef emerged from Brisbane’s Wolston Correctional Centre in a blue van and, after being taken to immigration offices in the city, left again for an unknown destination.

He was expected to return to the Gold Coast to collect his possessions, which had been placed in storage after his tenancy at his Southport unit ran out.

Dr Haneef, a registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital, was arrested at Brisbane International Airport on July 2, two days after the failed UK terrorist bombings in London and Glasgow, as he prepared to board a flight back to India to visit his wife and their new baby.

British authorities were interested in him because his mobile phone SIM card had turned up in the belongings of a UK-based relative linked to the attacks.

After 12 days in custody, Dr Haneef was charged with providing support to a terrorist organisation.

But in court, Commonwealth barrister Alan MacSporan, SC, said that after reviewing the case against Dr Haneef, who had been held in custody for 25 days, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions felt there was no reasonable conviction prospect.