Haneef's work visa to be reinstated

Sydney, Aug 21: An Australian court ruled today that the country's immigration minister wrongly revoked a visa for an Indian doctor who was briefly accused of links with a failed British car bomb plot in June.

The Australian government has been criticised by civil rights groups and legal organisations for its bungled arrest and subsequent release of Dr Mohamed Haneef in July.

''The minister cancelled the visa...by applying the wrong test. It follows that the decision must be set aside,'' said Federal Court Judge Jeffrey Spender in Brisbane.

The judge's decision, referring to Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews, was posted on the Federal Court's Web site.

Speaking before the court decision, Andrews said he was likely to appeal if the judge ruled against the government.

Haneef, 27, was held for 11 days before being charged with recklessly supporting terrorism in a case centred on the loan of a mobile phone SIM card to a relative in Britain linked to car bombs in London and Glasgow.

The charges were dropped because of lack of evidence, but the government cancelled Haneef's visa and he flew home to Bangalore to see his wife and newborn daughter.

Haneef has denied any knowledge of the plot and his arrest ignited concerns about Australia's new counter-terrorism laws.

Haneef, who worked in a Gold Coast hospital in Queensland state, has said he would like to return to Australia.

Spender rejected the minister's decision to cancel Haneef's visa on ''character grounds'' based on his association with two cousins who were terrorist suspects.

He said Haneef's visa could have been cancelled if the minister had used the fact that British police regarded Haneef as a person of interest in relation to the bombings and that Haneef had been formally charged with terror offences.

''These matters would have permitted the minister to conclude that the association between Dr Haneef and the Ahmed brothers (his cousins) went beyond a purely familial, social, innocent relationship,'' said Spender.

''On that material, it would have been open to the minister...to cancel Dr Haneef's visa,'' he said.

Haneef's visa is not automatically reinstated and the court in Brisbane ruled that the Australian government has 21 days to decide what action to take.

The Indian doctor, who worked in Gold Coast hospital in Brisbane, was slapped terror charges following the attack on Glasgow airport in which his second cousin Kafeel Ahmed, who died of 90 per cent burns after ramming a Jeep Cherokee filled with canisters and fuel into the airport, was involved. Kafeel' s brother Sabeel Ahmed, also a doctor working in the UK, is in the custody of Liverpool police after being charged with suppressing the information about the terror attack.

Dr Haneef was detained on charges of lending his sim card to Sabeel, before coming to Australia.

"We had lot of hope and immense belief in the Australian judiciary and now it has been proved again that Haneef is an innocent. It is part of the system that Haneef was wrongly framed and we should not blame the whole country. We were overwhelmed by the support given by the people of Australia and our own people back in India. We wanted to come out of Australia on a positive note and today' s court order has pleased us. We are ready to take the legal battle forward," he said.

Mr Siddiqui said Haneef would not like to speak to the media about the court order until the Immigration Minister comes up with his next move.

The Australian Federal Court today ruled that the Immigration Minister Kavin Andrews had adopted wrong method in declaring that Dr Haneef had failed the character test and hence his work visa was being revoked. The court further ruled that the Indian doctor was free to come back to Australia and continue his medical practice.

However, it gave 21 days of time for the Ministry to appeal against the verdict.

Dr Haneef's advocate Peter Russo speaking from Australia said that if the Immigration Ministry preferred to appeal against the court order the next hearing was likely to be posted in December and the final outcome could be expected only next year.

UNI