Doctor held in Australia over UK terror

Doctor held in Australia over UK terror
By Stephen Fidler, Ben Hall, Virginia Marsh, James Wilson and agencies
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: July 2 2007 22:11 | Last updated: July 3 2007 15:59



An Indian doctor was detained in Australia for questioning in connection with a suspected al Qaeda plot to detonate car bombs in London and Scotland as he tried to leave the country, the Australian prime minister, John Howard, said on Tuesday.

The hospital registrar, named in Australian media reports as Dr Mohammed Haneef, aged 27, was seized at Brisbane airport where he was trying to leave on a one-way ticket.

His detention, after a tip-off from UK police, widens the international dimension of the investigation and takes to eight the number held, at least six of whom are doctors.

All eight are linked to a plan to detonate two car bombs left in central London early on Friday and an attack on Glasgow city airport in Scotland on Saturday using a fuel-laden Jeep Cherokee.

Police in Lancashire on Tuesday afternoon arrested a further two men on suspicion of terrorist offences but the force said it was too early to know whether the arrrests would prove to be connected to the wider inquiry related to bomb attempts in London and Scotland.

The men were held at about noon at an industrial estate on Birley Street, Blackburn – the town represented in parliament by Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary and now justice minister. No more details about the men were available.

Lancashire police said they had not been asked to carry out the arrests on behalf of the Metropolitan Police, which is leading the investigation into the attempted bombings at the weekend.

In another development, news organisations said that police had carried out two controlled explosions on a car related to the investigation at a mosque in Glasgow early on Tuesday. Police called the action precautionary and said the car did not contain explosives, according to reports.

Police also carried out a controlled explosion on a suspect package outside Hammersmith London Underground station. It was later said that the suspect package was harmless.

The arrest of the Indian doctor in Brisbane led counterterror authorities to a second doctor who is now also being interviewed, Mr Howard said. ‘‘The first person taken into custody is an Indian national who came to Australia sponsored by the Queensland (state) health department,” he told reporters. “The identity of that second person arose from the discussions that occurred with the first person taken into custody.”

Mr Haneef worked at the Gold Coast Hospital in southeast Queensland and was recruited from Liverpool, officials said.

The authorities stressed there was no evidence of a related plot in Australia and maintained the country’s terror alert at medium.

US law enforcement officials had intelligence reports a fortnight ago of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against “airport infrastructure or aircraft”, according to ABC News.

An unnamed senior official told the US news network that the intelligence led to Federal Air Marshals being placed on flights in and out of both Glasgow and Prague in the Czech Republic.

US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declined to comment, but told ABC News that “everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa.”

UK police were investigating on Monday whether a network of foreign doctors was responsible for three failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

The police arrested two more people on Monday in the Glasgow area, after the arrests of four men and one woman over the weekend.

The developments are likely to trigger reviews of UK immigration procedures that allow foreign-qualified doctors into the country to help fill shortages in the National Health Service.

The British Medical Association said it had already become harder since last year for doctors from outside Europe to take up training posts in the UK, following an increase in UK medical school graduates.

The manhunt continued for others connected to the plot. A person briefed on the investigation said that the number eventually arrested could double, and include more medical practitioners.

The new arrest in Brisbane and evidence of the strong medical links of the suspects came as some details emerged about the background of those under arrest.

The passenger of the flaming car at Glasgow airport was named as Bilal Abdulla, who qualified in Baghdad as a doctor in 2004. The driver suffered severe burns in the attack and remained in a critical condition at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.

Police said they carried out the controlled detonation of a vehicle in the grounds of the hospital on Monday, but said it was a precautionary move and there was no indication it contained explosives.

Mohammed Asha, who also qualified as a doctor in Jordan in 2004, was arrested on Saturday night with his wife travelling north on the M6.

The investigation has moved rapidly since two cars were found on Friday with the unexploded devices inside. The cars have yielded many clues, including DNA evidence. Police have not released any pictures of the suspects in spite of plentiful closed circuit television coverage of the would-be bombers in London – suggesting they are confident they have found those who planted the devices or know who they are.

Britain’s threat level remained at critical, indicating that another attack could be imminent.

Jacqui Smith, Britain’s new home secretary, said searches had been carried out in at least 19 locations. She outlined extra security measures in force across the country, including high-visibility patrols, armed response vehicles, increased use of stop-and-search powers, and tighter controls on roads to airports.

In an emergency statement to parliament, Ms Smith thanked the public for “their patience and measured response to these events”. In a change of tone from her predecessors in Tony Blair’s government, Ms Smith steered clear of blaming the attacks on radical Islam or of evoking a “war on terror”.

A Downing Street spokesman said the government wanted to pursue a more “consensual” approach to counter-terrorism.

The extra measures were on top of longer-term improvements to security. The police and intelligence services had already advised 450 sporting venues and 400 shopping centres on how to tighten security, she said.