Opinion - Editorials

Balancing firmness with sensitivity

The several twists and turns in the Australian Federal Police’s investigation of Mohammed Haneef have raised important issues of balancing the implementation of the country’s tough anti-terror laws with sensitivity to the basic rights of individual suspects. By the accounts that have come out so far, Haneef’s connection with the failed London bombing and with the Glasgow airport attack appears to be peripheral —he had left behind his mobile telephon e SIM card in the United Kingdom for the use of his cousins, Kafeel Ahmed and Sabeel Ahmed who have been arrested in the London and Glasgow incidents, and the card was not used in the attacks. Last week, his being charged with recklessness in providing assistance to a terrorist organisation dashed his family’s hopes of an early release. The latest twist in which his visa was revoked to enable his continued detention in an immigration facility after a magistrate had granted him bail seems stranger still.

No doubt terrorism has to be dealt with firmly and all nations need to extend their cooperation in apprehending and investigating suspects. Yet in the course of implementing anti-terrorism laws, care must be taken to ensure that the innocent who are thrown into an accidental association with terrorists are not harassed. Under Section 102.7 (2) of the Australian Criminal Code Act, 1995, a person commits an offence if, first, he “intentionally provides to an organisation support or resources” that would help it in its activity; second, the organisation is a terrorist organisation; and, third, the person “is reckless as to whether the organisation is a terrorist organisation.” On recklessness, Section 5.4 (1) says, “A person is reckless with respect to a circumstance if (a) he or she is aware of a substantial risk that the circumstance exists or will exist and (b) having regard to the circumstances known to him or her, it is unjustifiable to take the risk.” It is not clear what information the AFP has to indicate that Haneef had reasons to suspect that Kafeel and Sabeel were involved with a terrorist organisation, but it was not enough to convince the magistrate to deny him bail. It is inexplicable that the grant of bail was sought to be undermined by cancelling his visa on the ground that he did not pass the character test for immigrants because of “his association with persons involved in criminal conduct, namely terrorism,” as the Australian Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews put it. That the cancellation should have come soon after the grant of bail and not earlier when his association with Kafeel and Sabeel was known would seem to make it a colourable exercise of power. One hopes that the Australian criminal justice system will play fair by Haneef, guarding against overreach by the police and the executive.

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