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CANBERRA - New twists in the increasingly bizarre case against terrorism suspect Mohammed Haneef are becoming a serious embarrassment for Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his struggling Government.
Further leaks appeared in Sunday newspapers in an apparent bid to balance revelations of Federal Police bungles that have fuelled anger over the detention of the 27-year-old Indian doctor in connection with last month's failed bombings in London and Glasgow.
The leaks, including suggestions that Haneef may have been involved in a plot to attack Gold Coast skyscrapers, came from Government and police sources, despite Howard's denials that earlier revelations to News Ltd newspapers came from Canberra.
Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty, who had attacked Haneef's legal team for releasing the transcript of an initial interview with police, last night dismissed the Gold Coast attack reports as inaccurate.
The case has also soured relations with India, which demanded an explanation from Canberra and sent External Affairs Minister E. Ahamed to visit Haneef's wife, Firdous Arshiya, in Bangalore - a move regarded as a sharp diplomatic slap in the face for Australia.
So embarrassing has the Haneef case become that senior Government sources told the Sunday Age Canberra was planning to forget the criminal charge against the former Gold Coast Hospital registrar and to deport him as soon as possible to contain the political fallout.
The newspaper was told influential members of the Government were furious at the Federal Police's handling of the case and wanted to shut down the issue before it caused further harm to Government credibility.
Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews last week outraged legal and human rights groups by cancelling Haneef's temporary work visa on character grounds and ordering his deportation under migration laws immediately after a Brisbane magistrate defied Government expectations and granted Haneef bail.
Haneef spent 12 days in detention without charge under harsh anti-terrorism laws before police finally dropped efforts to extend their interrogation and charged him with recklessly providing resources to a terrorist organisation.
But the basis on which the charge was laid - and also for Andrews' deportation order - has since been shown to be false, severely denting the standing of the Federal Police and the credibility of the Government.
Haneef gave a mobile phone SIM card containing unused credit to his second cousin, Sabeel Ahmed, before he left the United Kingdom last September to take a job at a Gold Coast hospital.
The Federal Police later told Brisbane magistrate Jacqui Payne and Andrews that the SIM card had been found in the possession of Sabeel's brother Kafeel, who was severely burned in the attempt to ram an explosives-laden Jeep into a Glasgow airport terminal.
Police suggested that the bombers had expected the card to be destroyed in the bombing.
Instead, it has emerged that the card was found hours later with Sabeel Ahmed in Liverpool, hundreds of kilometres away - severing the alleged link between Haneef and the bombing attempt.
Sabeel has been charged only with withholding information, and police did not allege that the card was used in the attack.
Scrutiny of the evidence has shown other inconsistencies, fuelling demands that Haneef be freed.
But yesterday News Ltd newspapers carried new allegations, quoting senior Government and police sources, suggesting that Haneef was part of a conspiracy to attack Australia, possibly on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States.
The reports said that police were examining images of a Gold Coast building and its foundations found in documents and photographs seized during a raid on Haneef's apartment after his arrest on July 2. The reports also claimed that Haneef was allegedly one of a group of doctors who had been learning to fly in Queensland.
