Chatroom conversations Mohammed Haneef had with his brother suggest that the Indian doctor may have had prior knowledge of the botched terror plot in the UK, Australian Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said on Tuesday.
Andrews detailed what he said was intelligence information gleaned from chatroom conversations that Haneef had with his brother in India to back his decision to cancel the doctor's working visa.
He released advice from Solicitor General David Bennett QC, which said information provided by the Australian Federal Police was sufficient ground to revoke Haneef's visa.
"The solicitor general has advised me that based on the material that is known now, I could make the same decision as I originally did," he said, according to media reports in Melbourne.
"I will not, however, release the full, protected material as I've been advised by the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police that this would have the effect of prejudicing or jeopardising further investigations," he said.
Andrews said the solicitor general's advice covered matters such as contact between Dr Haneef and his cousins in the UK, who are accused of involvement in a failed plot to bomb central London and the Glasgow airport.
"Importantly, there was a computer room conversation, a chatroom conversation, with Dr Haneef's brother in India on the afternoon before his attempted hasty departure from Australia," he said.
"In it, the brother of Haneef says 'nothing has been found out about you' and asked when Haneef would be getting out, to which Haneef replied 'today'," Andrews said.
"The brother asked whether he had permission to take leave and what he told the (Gold Coast) hospital," Andrews said.
"Haneef said he told them his baby was born in an emergency caesarean. The brother told him to 'tell them that you have to as you have a daughter born, do not tell them anything else'. The brother then said not to delay his departure and not to let anyone else use his number in Australia, nor to give it to anyone.
"The brother added that 'aunty' told him that brother Kafeel used it in some sort of protest over there," Andrews said, in a reference to the UK bombing accused Khafeel Ahmed.
Andrews said the AFP had told him before making his visa decision that police suspected the Internet conversation maybe evidence Haneef had prior knowledge of the UK bomb plot.
"And secondly, the AFP consider Haneef's attempted urgent departure from Australia on a one-way ticket for a purpose which appears to be a false pretext to be highly suspicious and may reflect Haneef's awareness of the conspiracy to plan and prepare the acts of terrorism in London and Glasgow," Andrews said.
"The suspicion which the federal police referred to in terms of Haneef was that he was wanting to get out of Australia not because of the reason proffered, namely that the child had been born -- remembering that the child had been born I think six days earlier.
"That was a pretext, a false pretext, on which he was wanting to get out of Australia because of his association with the Ahmed brothers, the cousins, and the incidents which had occurred in the UK," Andrews said.
Andrews said Haneef had not applied for leave from the hospital until after he had received two phone calls, including one from India, in which he was told there was an issue with his SIM card.
"The whole circumstances surrounding Haneef's attempted hasty departure from Australia, including chat room conversations, when viewed against his clear prior association with the Ahmed brothers, led me to form a reasonable suspicion as required by the migration legislation," Andrews said.
"I received information from the Australian Federal Police regarding Haneef and I cancelled his visa in the national interest based on that advice," he said.
"I will continue to put the security and safety of Australians first in relation to this matter," Andrews added.
Under a storm of criticism for his decision to cancel the visa just after Haneef was granted bail by a Queensland court on now abandoned terror charges, Andrews had said he wanted to show why he had terminated the visa on "character" grounds.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he would broadly outline Australia's reasons for cancelling the visa of Haneef when he meets with Indian officials on the sidelines of an ASEAN gatheing in Manila on Tuesday.
But he said he would not reveal anything to India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee that could hinder ongoing investigations being carried out by police in Australia and Britain.
Andrews and the Australian Federal Police had indicated the decision to cancel the visa had been made on basis of information not provided to the court.
Haneef's solicitor Peter Russo earlier on Tuesday repeated his call for Andrews to release all the material, saying the minister had used the existence of the material to make slanderous allegations against the doctor.
He said Andrews had floated the release of the information and now was hiding behind the Australian Federal Police to back off, yet again.
"I again challenge Andrews to lay all his cards on the table," Russo told media in Melbourne from Bangalore, where he flew with Haneef on Saturday night.
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