Australia Drops Charge Against Indian Doctor

After plenty of fumbling, bumbling and stumbling by Australian authorities, the country's top prosecutor dropped a terrorism charge today against Mohamed Haneef, an Indian doctor whose cousins are suspected of involvement in the bombing attempts in London and Glasgow.

A short time later, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews -- who had moved to keep Haneef in custody by canceling his visa after a court ordered him released on bail earlier this month -- announced Haneef would be released. He will continue to be under residential detention.

Haneef had been charged with recklessly supporting a terrorist organization after authorities said he gave his cell phone SIM card to a cousin when he left Britain for Australia.

But government prosecutors acknowledged two major mistakes in Haneef's case. First, they said the SIM card that he had given to his cousin was found at the crash site at the Glasgow airport, and it wasn't. Second, they said he had lived with some of the suspects before moving to Australia, when he hadn't.

There's always an argument in terrorism cases that it's better to be safe than sorry. (Hey, I lived in Boston, where we shut down an entire city over some colored panels showing cartoon characters.) But, in this case, even the judge who ordered Haneef released on bail pointed out that there was no clear evidence that he was involved in the British plots.

Now, Australian officials are forced into "an embarrassing climbdown," as The Guardian puts it. There is more finger-pointing going on in Canberra than there is in L.A. after a Lakers playoff loss. However, the officials involved have refused to even offer an apology.

This is the kind of mistake that can bring a government down in the parliamentary system. It will be worth watching the fallout in the coming days.

4:03 PM ET | 07-27-2007 | permalink