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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lebanon and Australia compete for Fat Tony
2007-10-17
Lebanon has rebuffed a high level request by Australia to drop its rival extradition bid for crime boss Tony Mokbel, also known as "Fat Tony". The knock-back has handed Mokbel a glimmer of hope that he may end up in a Lebanese jail from where he would not be extradited to Australia to face murder charges.

Canberra has protested against the mysterious eleventh-hour attempt by Lebanese prosecutors to seek the extradition of Mokbel - a move that directly competes with Australia's own bid to extradite the underworld king from Greece back to Melbourne. Greece has not yet received a formal application from Lebanon for Mokbel's extradition but Lebanese prosecutors late last month gave notice of intent to lodge an extradition request.

The Australian understands that vigorous high-level representations to Lebanon to drop its request to Greek authorities for Mokbel's extradition have so far fallen on deaf ears. The rebuff came despite Canberra stating that Mokbel was arguably Australia's most wanted criminal and his case was an important one.

Australian officials are not sure why Lebanon would seek to extradite Mokbel, who also holds a Lebanese passport and has family in the north of the country. They are also puzzled by the lack of details provided by Lebanon about the extradition request. It is still unclear what crimes Lebanon wants to extradite him for, and why that country would challenge Australia on a case of such importance.

Under Lebanese law, a citizen with joint foreign nationality can be subject to extradition for offenses committed overseas. No evidence has emerged to support speculation that Mokbel's connections may have bribed officials in Lebanon to make the extradition request.

Lebanon's rival extradition bid means Greece may be forced to make a choice between the two countries. Mokbel was arrested in Athens in June after 15 months on the run and is exhausting every legal processs available to delay being sent back to Australia, where he faces a further 18 charges, including two for murder.

Mokbel's Australian lawyer, Mirko Bagaric, said yesterday he had still not received details about the Lebanese extradition bid. But he said that if there were rival extradition bids, Greece would be under no legal obligation to choose one side over the other and it would come down to which country Greece wanted to please the most. "There are no internationally recognised standards when requests compete - it becomes a matter of international politics rather than international law or which country has more clout,' he said.

On a separate matter, Mr Bagaric said his client was likely to appeal to the Australian High Court to avoid being extradited back to Melbourne. This follows last week's decision by the full bench of the Federal Court in Melbourne to reject Mokbel's appeal against an earlier Federal Court ruling that the Australian Government's extradition request was valid.

Mokbel's legal team had argued that the extradition request should be declared invalid because the wrong minister had signed it - they claim the request should have been signed by Attorney-General Philip Ruddock rather than Justice Minister David Johnston.

Spokeswomen for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Justice Minister declined to comment on the case yesterday. Mokbel is due to appear in the Greek Supreme Court in Athens again on December 4. While on the run last year, he was sentenced in absentia to a minimum of nine years' jail for importing almost 2kg of cocaine from Mexico. He has since been charged with the murders of underworld rival Lewis Moran and drug dealer Michael Marshall during Melbourne's gangland war.
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Down Under
China tries to hack Australian & New Zealand Govt.
2007-09-11
CHINA has allegedly tried to hack into highly classified government computer networks in Australia and New Zealand as part of a broader international operation to glean military secrets from Western nations.

The Howard Government yesterday would neither confirm nor deny that its agencies, including the Defence Department, had been subject to cyber attack from China, but government sources acknowledge that thwarting such assaults is a continuous challenge. "It's a serious problem, it's ongoing and it's real," one senior government source said.

Western intelligence experts say that China has also targeted the US, Canada, Germany and Japan as part of its global intelligence-gathering effort.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday confirmed that foreign intelligence agencies had tried to hack into government computer networks, but said they had not compromised top-secret data banks. "The assurance I've been given by intelligence agencies is that no classified information has been at risk at all," Miss Clark said. "We have very smart people to provide protection every time an attack is tried. Obviously we learn from that.

"What I can stress is that absolutely no classified information has ever been penetrated by these attacks."

While Miss Clark knew which countries were involved, she would not name them, saying her Government had not spoken to the nations concerned about the problem. "That's not the way intelligence matters are handled," she said.

The Financial Times reported last week that Beijing had hacked into the Pentagon's computer network earlier this year - a claim strenuously denied by Beijing.

The alleged cyber attack on the Pentagon came only days after China's intelligence services were accused of hacking into German Chancellor Angela Merkel's office and three other German government ministries.

Miss Clark acknowledged on Monday that several governments had recently experienced attacks on their computer networks. "It's not something unique to us, it's something that every country is experiencing," she said.

Earlier, Warren Tucker, head of the New Zealand intelligence agency, the Security Intelligence Service, confirmed that foreign governments had hacked into New Zealand government computer systems.

The Dominion Post newspaper quoted Dr Tucker as saying government departments' websites had been attacked, information stolen and hard-to-detect software had been installed which could be used to take control of computer systems. There was evidence foreign governments were responsible for the attacks, he said, but did not name the countries concerned.

Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock is sufficiently concerned about cyber attacks to be spending more than $70 million to improve the e-security of government and private computer networks.
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Down Under
Australian authorities monitoring Iranian Students amid spy concerns
2007-09-09
National security agents are closely monitoring Iranians at Australian universities, fearing some of the students are doubling as spies and reporting to Tehran.

State and federal security authorities are also keeping a close eye on Iranian students in Australia who are interested in becoming residents or citizens, amid growing suspicions that some may be intent on establishing an espionage foothold.

It is understood their concerns about Iranian students were sparked by calls to the National Security Hotline and information from local Persian leaders.

Some of the students suspected of gathering information on the communities in Sydney and Melbourne are believed to be under electronic surveillance.

The number of Iranian students studying in Australia has multiplied almost five-fold in the past five years. Most study engineering and surveying.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told The Australian that threats to Australia were investigated by the relevant national security authorities.

Security sources told The Australian they believed some of the students were being used to spy on members of the local community who were hostile towards the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Australia's Iranian community of 25,000 is largely made up of Shia Muslim migrants who left their homeland after 1979 to escape the Islamic revolution.

Security sources said the Iranian Government was intent on monitoring them, fearing it was being undermined by their ideological and financial support of groups opposed to Tehran's regime.

Persian Cultural Foundation of Australia president Homer Abramian accused the Iranian regime of sending its agents to Australia under the guise of students, in some instances, and in other cases paying students to report back on local community affairs.

In 2005, former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin, who worked at the Chinese consulate in Sydney, revealed that Beijing had 1000 intelligence operatives working in Australia. A former member of the Chinese intelligence network, Hoa Fengjun, also said China had agents monitoring Australia's business groups, foreign policies and local community members opposed to the communist regime.

"The majority of the students are very nice people and from very good families ... but we know that some of them are spies and they are not here just for education," Mr Abramian said.

Iranian youth leader Nosrat Hosseini said she believed some international Iranian students in Melbourne were spying on local community members opposed to the Tehran Government.

The Melbourne-based secretary of the Iranian Womens Association said the students often used the Faulkner Mosque, a Shia place of worship in Melbourne's north, as an entry point to community affairs and functions.

She said the students were often interested in finding out information about the general sentiment held by the local community towards the Iranian regime.

"They also want to see whether there are anti-Iranian Government campaigns that people are involved in and about how much they know about human rights violations in Iran," Ms Hosseini said.

Mr Abramian said some Australians of Iranian heritage - who were predominantly hostile to Tehran's regime - also feared expressing their opposition to the Islamic republic during community gatherings.

There are 1421 Iranian students studying in Australian universities and other educational institutions this year, up from 307 in 2002, according to the Department of Education.

Most are full-fee-paying students, while a few are in Australia on Iranian Government-sponsored scholarships.
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Down Under
West underestimates the evil of Islam
2007-08-20


THE West was still underestimating the evil of Islam, an influential Muslim thinker has warned, insisting that Australia and the US have been duped into believing there is a difference between the religion's moderate and radical interpretations.

On a two-week "under the radar" visit to Australia, Syrian-born Wafa Sultan secretly met both sides of federal politics and Jewish community leaders, warning them that all Muslims needed to be closely monitored in the West.

In an interview with The Australian, Dr Sultan - who shot to recognition last year following an interview on al-Jazeera television in which she attacked Islam and the prophet Mohammed - said Muslims were "brainwashed" from an early age to believe Western values were evil and that the world would one day come under the control of Sharia law.

The US-based psychiatrist - who has two fatwas (religious rulings) issued against her to be killed - warned that Muslims would continue to exploit freedom of speech in the West to spread their "hate" and attack their adopted countries, until the Western mind grasped the magnitude of the Islamic threat.

"You're fighting someone who is willing to die," Dr Sultan told The Australian in an Arabic and English interview. "So you have to understand this mentality and find ways to face it. (As a Muslim) your mission on this earth is to fight for Islam and to kill or to be killed. You're here for only a short life and once you kill a kafir, or a non-believer, soon you're going to be united with your God."

Dr Sultan, who was brought to Australia by a group called Multi-Net comprised of Jews and Christians, met senior politicians, including Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Labor deputy leader Julia Gillard.

Private security was hired for Dr Sultan, who left Australia yesterday, and state police authorities were also made aware of her movements in the country.

The organisers of her visit asked the media to not publish anything about her stay until she had left the country because of security-related concerns. Dr Sultan said Islam was a "political ideology" that was wrongly perceived to have a moderate and hardline following.

"That's why the West has to monitor the majority of Muslims because you don't know when they're ready to be activated. Because they share the same basic belief, that's the problem," said the 50-year-old, who was last year featured in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Dr Sultan, who was raised on Alawite Islamic beliefs before she renounced her religion, began to question Islam after she witnessed her university teacher get gunned down by Muslim hardliners in Syria in 1979.

The mother of three, who migrated to the US in 1989, said the West needed to hold Muslims and their leaders more accountable for the atrocities performed in the name of Islam if they wanted to win the war on terror.

But while she considered the prophet Mohammed "evil" and said the Koran needed to be destroyed because it advocated violence against non-believers, Dr Sultan struggled to articulate her vision for Muslims, whom she said she was trying to liberate from the shackles of their beliefs.

"I believe the only way is to expose the Muslims to different cultures, different thoughts, different belief systems," said Dr Sultan, who is completing her first book, The Escaped Prisoner: When Allah is a Monster.

"Muslims have been hostages of their own belief systems for 1400 years. There is no way we can keep the Koran."
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India-Pakistan
Indian police stall Dr. Haneef probe
2007-07-11
Indian police have refused to co-operate with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigation into the background of arrested Gold Coast doctor Mohammed Haneef.

An AFP officer arrived in India at the weekend to begin examining Dr Haneef's local connections.

But India's Criminal Investigation Bureau says it will not share information with the Australian officer until he presents an Australian court-issued document relating to the case.

The investigation is now at a halt until the paperwork is processed.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, who is on a visit to India, says Australia and India need to improve ties on conducting criminal investigations.

Meanwhile in Australia, Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says Dr Haneef will be able to resume his life "free of any taint" if he is eventually freed without charge.

The Indian national was detained last week as part of investigations into the failed UK car bomb plots.

Yesterday Australian Federal Police (AFP) sought a third custody extension, but legal argument and procedural matters took up most of the day and the hearing was adjourned until Friday.

Mr Ruddock says the police request for more time to detain Dr Haneef will be considered when the hearing resumes.

"We are a society where people are frequently charged and it's thought that there is sufficient evidence that people have a case to answer, but if they're found not guilty, then the presumption of innocence until proven guilty applies and people are able to resume their lives, free of any taint," he said.

"When you have to deal with authorities abroad .. they're talking to law enforcement authorities in the United Kingdom and as I understand it in India ... that liaison over different time zones is a factor that needs to be taken into account.

"And the reasonableness of any request is to be determined by a judicial officer."

Questions over magistrate


The legal wrangle over Dr Haneef's on-going detention has now reportedly embroiled the Brisbane magistrate hearing his case.

It is understood Dr Haneef's lawyer Peter Russo has asked for the un-named magistrate to disqualify himself on the grounds of possible bias.

Mr Russo would not elaborate, but is remaining optimistic.

"We are making headway," he said. "Part of the application was this legal argument which we have done now."

Police 'desperate'?

Meanwhile a justice expert from the Australian National University says it appears that the AFP are becoming desperate in their attempt to charge Dr Haneef.

Dr Brett Bowden from the Centre for International Governance and Justice says it looks like police are struggling to find a concrete link between Dr Haneef and the attacks in London and Glasgow.

"Whether it's a sign that they actually don't have anything or they're just trying to gather more, to get some concrete links to the failed terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow [I do not know]," he said.

"I fear that nine days without charge may mean that they don't actually have anything.

"Nine days seems an awful long time to be honest.

"As I understand it, the police have gone back to his apartment to gather more forensic evidence.

"Whether that means they didn't do a thorough enough job the first time around, or that they're getting desperate, you'd hope that if they'd found something to charge him with they would've done it by now."
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Down Under
Anti-terror raids in Australia, 5 detained, 2 hospitals searched
2007-07-07
TWO West Australian hospitals have been raided and a further five foreign doctors questioned as Australian inquiries connected to the foiled United Kingdom terrorist attacks spread to two more states.

WA police yesterday interviewed and released four Indian doctors working on 457 skilled migrant visas after raiding the Kalgoorlie and Royal Perth hospitals, along with two more undisclosed premises. Another overseas doctor in New South Wales was interviewed by counter-terrorism police yesterday. Federal police also are combing through 31,000 documents – some of them in foreign languages – seized in the raids, including on laptop computers.

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said several items had been taken by police for further examination, including mobile phones and laptop computers. "The linkages are with people who are known to each other and that's prompting the further inquiries," he said. "This is not about doctors. These are people who are of similar nationalities, and the warrants that were executed in WA were in Kalgoorlie and Royal Perth Hospital."

* Two WA hospitals raided
* Four doctors questioned
* Overseas doc interviewed by police
* Police combing through documents
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty said the doctors interviewed by police were foreign-trained and had worked in Britain. He urged Australians not to be concerned about the medical profession. "What we want to do is just reassure people this is not an investigation into the medical practitioners per se. It's an investigation in support of the investigation by the London Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism command," Mr Keelty said.

Mr Ruddock said the AFP and WA police had been working in close cooperation and were liaising closely with other Australian authorities and the UK. "It should be emphasised that a presumption of innocence exists in every police inquiry. No one has been arrested, charged or detained in relation to these inquiries," he said. "There is no suggestion of any threat to the people of WA and the Australian Government has received no information which would result in an increased threat.

"As this is an ongoing investigation, it would be inappropriate to comment further."

The AFP has been given until Monday night to hold Dr Haneef in Queensland during which time it will peruse a huge number of documents seized during the Australian raids. "Obviously (the documents) take some time to work through, particularly if they're in a foreign language," Mr Keelty said.

WA Premier Alan Carpenter said he did not want to see a backlash against overseas-trained doctors. "There is nothing that has been presented to us by the police that would lead us to believe that we have got issues with our overseas trained doctors, Indian-trained or otherwise," he said. "I would not like to see a common slur against our Indian or other overseas-trained doctors because of what's happening in Britain or what's going on with the investigation in Brisbane.

"That would be very, very regrettable."
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Down Under
Australian Attorney-General says national terror laws could be tightened
2007-07-05
CHANGES could be made to Australia's counter-terrorism laws dictating how long a person can be detained without charge, Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said today. Current laws allow authorities to hold a person without charge for a period of 48 hours.

The laws are being used in the case of Indian national Mohammed Haneef, who is being questioned in Brisbane this afternoon by Australian Federal Police officers and the chief inspector from London's Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Unit. The unnamed senior British officer flew in to Brisbane earlier today.
First class on BA, with a suitcase full of truncheons that won't have to be declared at customs ...
Dr Haneef, a registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital, is one of eight health workers arrested in connection with the plot and the only person detained outside Britain. He was arrested on Monday night at Brisbane International Airport and, with authorities receiving a court order for his detention on Tuesday, can be held without charge until tonight.

Mr Ruddock today said the counter-terrorism laws are under ongoing review, and did not rule out changes to the time frame for detention without charge. "There may well be some finessing of some issues," Mr Ruddock said on ABC Radio today. "There are also some outstanding reports, where there were additional factors raised, which the Government is giving consideration.

"So I would not foreclose further amendments.

"I'm not ruling anything out and I'm not ruling anything in."
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Down Under
Extra patrols in Qld as Gold Coast doctor questioned
2007-07-04
SECURITY at tonight's third State of Origin rugby league match in Brisbane and at APEC meetings elsewhere in Queensland will be beefed up following the arrest of Gold Coast-based doctor Mohammed Haneef in connection with terror plots in the United Kingdom.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to pack Suncorp Stadium in inner Brisbane for tonight's match. Queensland Police have said there is no specific threat to the match, but police will be out in extra numbers just in case. Extra patrols will also be in force at an APEC 2007 trade ministers' meeting starting in Cairns tomorrow.

Australian Federal Police officers have been granted an extra 48 hours to hold Dr Haneef, who was detained at Brisbane international airport for questioning over the car bomb plot in London and the attack on Glasgow airport. AFP commissioner Mick Keelty has said it should be known by then if Dr Haneef - who was arrested as he was preparing to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur on Monday night - will be charged with any offences.

"We have had obviously significant time with Dr Haneef. We are hopeful that we'll be able to clarify his situation in the course of the next 48 hours or so," he said on ABC radio. "If we wanted to detain him any longer we would have to go back to the court."

Mr Keelty later gave his first hint at the evidence that led to Dr Haneef's arrest. "I know there is speculation in the press about a phone call," he said, adding that there was "a lot more" to it than that. "There is a considerable amount of material that's been provided to us that we are working through."

A senior British police officer is heading to Australia to interview Dr Haneef. She will arrive tomorrow.

A second doctor questioned yesterday by AFP officers has been released without charge this morning. "This person is now free to go and free to go about his own business, and we should respect his liberty and his privacy," Mr Keelty has said on the Nine Network.

Prime Minister John Howard has also stressed that Dr Haneef has not been charged with any crime. "The man has been detained, he has been taken into custody, he has not been charged with any offence," Mr Howard has said. "Until he is - and he may not be, it will depend very much on how the investigations go - it is appropriate to extend to him a presumption of innocence."

British police are reported to have requested a speedy extradition of Dr Haneef, amid speculation that he may have been known to Britain's top spy agency MI5 before his arrest. Reports in the UK have said all eight suspects held have appeared on the MI5 database. Seven of those arrested are doctors or trainee doctors while the sole woman among those held - believed to be the wife of another of the suspects - is a laboratory researcher, reports have said.

The head of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security, Professor Anthony Glees, said he believed at least one of those arrested was already known to Britain's top spooks and on MI5's database. Security sources quoted in British reports have said their appearances on watchlists shows was to be expected and proves the security services are keeping tabs on the right areas of society.

Dr Haneef was appointed registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital at Southport last September after being recruited from a hospital near Liverpool in northern England. He studied in Bangalore.

One of the doctors arrested, a 26-year-old man arrested in the northern English city of Liverpool on Sunday, worked at the same hospital as Dr Haneef and the nearby Warrington Hospital. The other doctors arrested reportedly worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Scotland, and the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent in England.

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has denied national security was being compromised by poor vetting of temporary visas. Mr Ruddock said there had been no "lowering of the bar" in relation to the processing of doctors when they arrived to work in Australia.
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Down Under
Hicks Won't Test Australia Controls
2007-05-21
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - David Hicks, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to stand trial for terrorism, will not fight strict monitoring conditions likely to be imposed on his release from an Australian jail later this year, his lawyer said Monday.

Hicks' return to Australia has prompted debate about how he will be treated after his release, with one possibility being a control order restricting his movement, requiring him to report to authorities, and other strict monitoring measures.

Hicks' Australian lawyer David McLeod said his client would not oppose such an order. ``He doesn't want to be seen as someone who is bucking the system or being difficult. He is extremely grateful to everybody who has secured his return to Australia and he doesn't want to upset that,'' McLeod told Seven Network television.
Just wait til it's time and see what he says then.
Hicks is due to be released Dec. 29. He has not committed a crime under Australian law, but national police could request a control order using terrorism laws introduced since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. Attorney General Philip Ruddock declined to comment on security arrangements for Hicks, saying only ``public safety is the primary concern.''

McLeod said Hicks, a Muslim convert who left Australia in 1999 and joined fighters in Kosovo and Kashmir before going to Afghanistan, was overjoyed to be back in Australia. Hicks had ``a lot of regrets'' and accepts he was ``misguided,'' he said. ``He knows he's got the job ahead of him to prove he's not the monster he's made out to be,'' McLeod said.
And we're supposed to buy that.
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Down Under
Zero tolerance for 'terror' books
2007-04-13
BOOKS and DVDs glorifying terrorist acts will be pulled from the shelves and prevented from entering the country under new federal laws to be unveiled today. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has declared a "zero-tolerance approach" to material that "advocates" terrorism.

Under the existing Classification Act, material can only be removed from sale if it is deemed likely to "promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence". But the amended law - to be discussed at a meeting between Mr Ruddock and the state attorneys-general in Canberra today - makes it an offence to circulate material that "advocates" a terrorist act. Imported material published outside Australia will be stopped at Customs if it is found to glorify, praise or encourage acts of terrorism.
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Down Under
Aussi Mullah Pleads: Join Teheran in the Trenches
2007-04-08
Richard Kerbaj
April 09, 2007

AUSTRALIA'S most senior Islamic cleric, Taj Din al-Hilali, called on the Muslim world to unite behind the radical Iranian regime and to serve in its "trenches" in published comments during a visit to Tehran last weekend.

As Tehran was involved in a tense standoff with Western powers over the detention of 15 British naval personnel seized after they were accused of trespassing in its waters last month, the Iranian media were using Sheik Hilali's quotes in a propaganda drive.

The controversial Australian mufti was quoted as saying that the global Islamic nation would never "kneel" to its enemies.

In reports published in Iran on Saturday, Sheik Hilali was quoted as saying that Muslims needed to overcome their sectarian divisions that have led to much "bloodletting" in Iraq. Leaders in Australia's Muslim community have attacked the Egyptian-born cleric over his reported comments, saying he had no authority to speak on their behalf. The comments will increase the pressure on the mufti, who caused a national furore last year when he compared scantily clad women with uncovered meat.

He is under investigation by police over allegations that he passed money raised by members of the Muslim community in Australia to supporters of al-Qa'ida and Hezbollah's terrorist arm during a visit to Lebanon lastyear.

The Australian revealed last week the Sydney-based Lebanese Muslim Association had raised $70,000 in conjunction with other Islamic bodies following the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon. The money was earmarked for war victims.

The weekend reports of Sheik Hilali praising Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hardline Islamic regime follow his January outburst on Egyptian television when he described Westerners as "the biggest liars".

"Anglo-Saxons came to Australia in chains, while we (Muslims) paid our way and come in freedom. We are more Australian than them," he told Egyptian television.
They came as phony refugees, and accepted "settlement" funds.

In Tehran, the mufti was billed as a celebrity by the Islamic Republic's newsagency. "The mufti of Australia has called on the Islamic world to stand in the trenches with the Islamic Republic of Iran which possesses the might and power," Iran's al-Alam News reported on its website in Arabic on Saturday.

It reported that Sheik Hilali - who was in Tehran for the three-day International Islamic Unity forum - told Alalam TV on Friday following the conference opening that he was committed to the unity of the Islamic nation.

"(Islamic unity) is what has brought all participants together at this Islamic unity conference, to show the whole world that they are dedicated to the one God and dedicated to Islamic unity and the Islamic nation will not kneel in front of its enemies, never," Sheik Hilali was reported as saying.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock yesterday told The Australian he was concerned about Sheik Hilali's reported comments.

"I would be concerned if any Australian was offering support and succour to Iran, particularly as it is intent on pursuing the development of the nuclear fuel cycle outside international scrutiny," Mr Ruddock said...
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Down Under
Guantanamo inmate lawyers target Australian govt
2007-02-26
CANBERRA - Lawyers for Australia’s only Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks launched court action against the Australian government on Monday, arguing senior ministers had failed to ensure a fair trial.

Hicks’ Australian-based solicitor David McLeod asked the Federal Court in Sydney to rule on whether senior lawmakers had breached their ministerial duty by approving trial for Hicks through a US military commission. “In effect the courts are being asked to review the actions of ministers in their dealings with other governments,” McLeod told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

The Australian Federal Court was to rule first on whether it had jurisdiction to hear a case which government lawyers said interfered with ministerial control over foreign affairs. Opening the case, Solicitor-General David Bennett said the government had no legal obligation to protect citizens abroad.

But Hicks’ lawyer McLeod said Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Attorney General Philip Ruddock should have followed the lead of the British government and ensured its citizens were released from Guantanamo Bay. “It’s definitely not a stunt. It’s an opportunity for David’s case to be aired before the courts and for the courts to take a view as to whether or not it has the power and authority to intervene to assist an Australian citizen,” he said.

As the hearing began, six top Australian legal figures wrote a public letter condemning the US military commission process, set up to try Hicks and other detainees. “The fact of the matter is that this is not a regular court, it’s not a properly constituted court and it cannot deliver a fair trial,” group spokesman and former Family Court Chief Justice Alistair Nicholson said.
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