Australia's most senior muslim cleric has been interviewed by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) over comments he made about Iran. A spokesman for Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali, Keysar Trad, says the interview took place in Sydney's south-west last week. Mr Trad says the interview was separate to an earlier AFP investigation, which cleared the sheikh of diverting charitable funds to the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah.He says the latest investigation relates to comments made several weeks ago in Tehran on Arabic television, where he called for support for Iran. Mr Trad says the AFP made reference to Australia's sedition laws. "The whole notion of the sedition provisions - I don't believe that they can be invoked in these circumstances because we are not at war with Iran," he said.
Mr Trad says the sheikh made the comments after addressing a conference in Tehran on Shiite and Sunni unity in the Muslim world. "One of the issues with that, and this is something that whoever referred these comments to the police should consider, that we have full diplomatic relations with Iran," he said. "We have an Iranian Embassy in Australia, we have an Iranian ambassador in Australia and I'm sure that we still have some trade with Iran."