SYDNEY, Nov 12: A judge told Australian intelligence and police officers on Monday that a student they pursued over terrorism charges still had rights whether he was “Muslim or not.”
Prosecutors dropped the case against Izhar-ul-Haque after Judge Michael Adams ruled that police interviews with him were inadmissible due to the conduct of the officers.
Civil liberties activists said the case exposed serious problems with the way Australia’s spy agency worked and it needed to ensure its activities remained within the law.
Izhar had been accused of receiving weapons and combat training from the extremist group Lashkar-i-Taiba during a visit to Pakistan in 2003.
Adams said one Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) officer had committed “the crime of false imprisonment and kidnap at common law.” Officers were also accused of unjustified and unlawful interference with Izhar’s personal liberty as well as unlawful trespass at his family home.
“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,” Adams said.
Izhar’s lawyer, Adam Houda, speaking outside the Supreme Court of New South Wales state where the judge made his comments, condemned what he said had been a “moronic prosecution.”
“From the beginning, this was no more than a show trial designed to justify the billions of dollars spent on counter-terrorism,” he said.
“It has been one bungled prosecution after another.”
Houda compared the case to that of Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef, who had his visa cancelled after he was linked to British car bombings earlier this year. Charges against Haneef were ultimately dropped.
The Australian Council for Civil Liberties said the findings showed serious problems with the way ASIO operated. The council’s head, Terry O’Gorman, said the spy agency needed to act within the law, bearing in mind the great increase in its powers since the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.
“The problem with ASIO powers, particularly with the huge number of increased terrorism laws that have been passed since 2001, is that they are becoming increasingly unaccountable,” O’Gorman told national radio.
“And with unaccountability comes the sort of behaviour that this particular Supreme Court judge has complained of.”—AFP
