Habib released

Mamdouh Habib is an Australian citizen. He has been held for three years without trial and subjected to torture by his captors. They did not tell him why they had arrested him nor did they present any evidence for the crimes they allege -- to others, not to him -- that he committed.

The Australian government -- in the form of the odious attorney-general Philip Ruddock -- claims that they believe he is guilty, although they have not presented his legal representation with any evidence either. They say they cannot prosecute him under their laughably loose terrorist legislation, because whatever he did, he did before they had a chickenhearted parliament pass it.

What we do know about Habib was that he was snatched from a bus while travelling in Pakistan. Two Germans who were in his company were released after Germany pressed hard diplomatically for their return. Australia not only did not apply diplomatic pressure for his release, it did not ask for him to have access to a lawyer, nor did it demand a fair trial nor for him to be extradited. It abandoned him. Without evidence's being presented, it agreed that he was a dangerous terrorist and left him to rot.

Habib has been to Afghanistan. His captors took him there for processing. The Australian government told his wife that he was heading for Afghanistan when he was arrested. He was in fact heading for Karachi, where he had a flight home booked.

Maha, his wife, thinks he was arrested because he had met the "blind sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman -- Mamdouh is fiercely religious -- and had become upset because the sheikh was refused his medication in jail (he is diabetic). She denies his connection with the sheikh, who was involved in the 1993 bombing of the WTC, went any further, and no evidence has been presented that he had anything whatsoever to do with the bombing or with any other act of terrorism or crime.

Australia has not protested the unlawful incarceration of a citizen and now that Habib has been released without charge it is suggesting that he will still be of interest to its security forces. There is a belief in the Moslem community that simply following Islam makes you of interest to ASIO. Of course, Australia cannot force the US to do anything. It cannot send a gunboat as Palmerston did when Dom Pacifico was held by the Greeks. But it can express its displeasure to the Americans; it can fight for its citizens' release; it can attempt to protect them. The message of the Habib case is that if the Americans point the finger, you will not be protected by your government.

If this is so, why do we have them?

posted by Dr Zen @ 8:52 am