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SYDNEY - A judge has launched a scathing attack on the "grossly improper" conduct of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) officers following the dropping of terror-related charges against a Sydney student.
In the NSW Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Michael Adams accused an Asio agent of kidnapping and false imprisonment and concluded the "oppressive conduct" by officers had influenced alleged admissions made by Izhar Ul-Haque.
Earlier this month, the judge ruled that because of the conduct of ASIO and Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers, interviews with Ul-Haque were inadmissible as evidence.
Adams yesterday was told the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) would not appeal his ruling and had dropped the case against the 24-year-old medical student.
Ul-Haque, who has been on bail, was charged with training with the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).
He had been accused of receiving weapons and combat training from the organisation during a visit to Pakistan in January and February 2003.
After being told of the DPP decision, the judge delivered the reasons for his ruling on the interviews. He was scathing about the conduct of Asio officers.
While his parents' Sydney house was being searched in November 2003, three Asio officers confronted Ul-Haque as he arrived at the local railway station on his way home from university. Instead of taking him to an office, they took him to a nearby park, at a time close to dark, and questioned him. "He was intentionally given to understand he was under an obligation to accompany the Asio officers and to answer their questions," the judge said.
Later at his home, after midnight, they questioned him again in a bedroom. The judge said he was satisfied one agent had committed the criminal offence of false imprisonment and kidnap, while another had unlawfully detained Ul-Haque for advantage.
"It was a gross interference by the agents of the state with the accused's legal rights as a citizen, rights which he still has whether he be suspected of criminal conduct or not, and whether he is Muslim or not," he said.
- AAP
