Haneef case: Oz detective who interviewed him to give evidence

Melbourne, Aug.4 : A police officer who interviewed terrorism suspect Mohamed Haneef after his arrest last July will this week give evidence at the inquiry into the bungled case.

According to news.com.au, Detective Sergeant Adam Simms, from Queensland Police, will appear before retired New South Wales Supreme Court judge John Clarke's inquiry into the affair tomorrow.

Haneef, 28, was arrested in Brisbane and detained for 12 days without charge last year over suspected links to botched terror attacks in Britain. He was later charged but the case against him collapsed amid accusations of bungling by the authorities.

Simms, on secondment to the Australian Federal Police, interviewed Haneef several times in the days after his arrest. His evidence will be given in private and details are unlikely to be made public.

Simms decision to give evidence assumes significance in the wake of Haneef's lawyers demanding an explanation from the Australian Government and courts as why he was slapped with a terrorism charge last year if he was not a security threat.

Reacting to an Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) missive that Dr Haneef was never a security threat, the lawyers urged a court hearing the case to force the Australian Federal Police to make public its submission to the Clarke Inquiry as why their client was falsely accused and detained.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the federal police have already made a submission to the inquiry but that document is protected from public scrutiny by a security classification that can only be removed by the agency itself.

The lawyers'' calls come after yesterday''s revelation that police ignored the conclusions reached by the ASIO while they were in pursuit of Haneef.

The ASIO revealed on Tuesday that it had "consistently" advised the Howard government and its agencies that it had no evidence connecting the Gold Coast-based doctor to a British terrorist plot.

That information was relayed in writing three days before federal police charged the doctor with recklessly supporting terrorism and five days before the former Immigration Minister, Kevin Andrews, stripped Dr Haneef of his visa on "character and national interest grounds" that have never been explained.

ANI