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| Down Under |
| Failed car bombers wanted to work in Australia |
| 2007-07-05 |
| Two of the men arrested over the weekend terror attacks in Britain applied to work as doctors in Western Australian but were rejected - and at least one is related to the young Gold Coast doctor set to spend a week in secure custody. As new links emerged in the car bomb investigation last night, a Brisbane magistrate gave police approval to detain Mohamed Haneef - arrested at Brisbane airport on Monday night on suspicion of being connected to a terrorist group - for another four days. Dr Haneef is the cousin of Sabeel Ahmed, 26, one of seven suspects detained in Britain, and may have been related to another suspect arrested when a Jeep Cherokee exploded at Glasgow airport. The West Australian branch of the Australian Medical Association, which runs a recruitment agency in the state, last night revealed that Dr Ahmed and his brother Kafeel had applied for work but had been rejected. Dr Haneef and Sabeel Ahmed worked together in Britain. According to reports, Kafeel is also known as Khalid Ahmed, who suffered life-threatening burns when he drove the Jeep packed with petrol and gas canisters into the Glasgow terminal building. London's The Daily Telegraph said Dr Haneef and the two Ahmed brothers were born and raised in Bangalore, India, and graduated with medical degrees from the Rajiv Gandhi University. AMA state president Geoff Dobbs said the association had also rejected an application from Gold Coast doctor Mohammed Asif Ali, who worked with Dr Haneef and drove him to the airport before the suspect's laptop was found in his car. "We believed their qualifications and references did not meet the standards required in Western Australia," Professor Dobbs said, adding that one of the three had made repeated applications for work. The Medical Board of Western Australia last night refused to comment on the case, while its Queensland equivalent offered no fresh information. Dr Ali, who has been interviewed by police but not accused of any crime, was yesterday moved from his Southport unit to a police safehouse after being besieged by the world's media. Dr Haneef is the first person to be detained and questioned under Australia's tough new counter-terrorism laws and is being held at the Brisbane Watchhouse. He has had visits from Indian consular officials but has declined an offer of a lawyer. The 27-year-old had obtained emergency leave from the hospital on Monday and booked a one-way ticket to India to see his wife and new baby but was arrested, having apparently been under surveillance for several days. Before leaving Britain last year, Dr Haneef left his mobile phone SIM card with Sabeel Ahmed. Reports suggest the prime suspect in the bombings, Jordanian-trained doctor Mohammed Asha, contacted Dr Haneef via email and text messages. Dr Haneef's family insist he is innocent. A Scotland Yard investigator arrived in Brisbane yesterday to assist the investigation. With Australian police still insisting no threat had been made against local targets, the British the Government lowered the threat level from "critical", its highest level, to "severe". Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said there was no intelligence to suggest another attack was imminent, but urged vigilance. The eight detained suspects are doctors or have medical links, and a British cleric claims to have been warned by an al-Qaeda figure in Iraq in April that "those who cure you will kill you". Police found suicide notes left by the occupants of the Jeep, which allegedly indicated they intended to detonate the vehicle while still inside. Allegations emerged that Bilal Abdulla, a suspected passenger in the Jeep, was associated with a hardline Muslim group in 2004. Police have been interviewing Dr Haneef's colleagues, some of whom trained in India and worked in Britain, amid fears of a "sleeper cell" in Australia. The case has renewed debate over overseas-trained doctors and prompted Queensland Senate candidate and One Nation founder Pauline Hanson to call for free medical degrees for Australians to bolster the system. |
| Posted by:Oztralian |