BANGALORE, India - The family of an Indian doctor arrested in Australia on terrorism charges and later freed expects the government there to compensate for “turning his life upside down,” a relative said Friday. “We want to see what they come up with,” said Imran Siddiqui, a close relative of Mohammed Haneef’s wife and the family spokesman who brought the doctor back home from Australia when he was freed in July.“When the judiciary says that whatever action you took against this man was wrong, it becomes the duty of the government to correct itself,” Siddiqui told AFP by telephone from the southern Indian city of Mysore.| They did. They'll let you back into the country. More than I would have done. Shaddup. |
The Australian government ordered an inquiry into the bungled case against Haneef after FridayÂ’s court ruling. Immigration Minister Chris Evans said the doctor was free to return to work in Australia, marking a shift in official stance following the election of the centre-left Labor Party last month.
Haneef was arrested at Brisbane airport on July 2, just days after failed car bombings in London and Glasgow, as he waited to board a flight to India. Australian authorities detained him for 12 days before charging him with providing support to a terrorist organisation after he gave a mobile phone SIM card to a cousin accused of being involved in the attacks. When the charge was dropped two weeks later due to a lack of evidence, then immigration minister Kevin Andrews cancelled HaneefÂ’s working visa on character grounds, forcing the doctor to return to India.
After his release, Haneef said he wanted his old job back at a Gold Coast hospital, but also said Australian authorities should apologise to India over the affair. The question of Haneef returning to Australia is open, said Siddiqui. “It’s very much open, I won’t be surprised if he decides to go back,” he said. Haneef’s wife, however, “is not in favour of him going back,” he said and added that the doctor will decide after he returns to India in about a week.