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SYDNEY: Counter-terrorism police were Monday granted an extra two days to hold a doctor detained in Australia in connection with attempted car bombings in Britain, lawyers said.
Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef, 27, was arrested a week ago as he allegedly tried to leave Australia on a one-way ticket and in terms of an earlier court order had been due to be charged or released by early Tuesday morning.
But police applied to the Brisbane Magistrates Court for permission to hold Haneef for another five days to give them time to sift through mountains of seized documents without having to question him.
The court granted police an interim order giving them another 48 hours before a final 12-hour questioning period begins, said Haneef's barrister, who did not want to be named.
The case will return to court on Wednesday and police will argue for a further extension to the existing order, he said.
As the global investigation into a possible ring of jihadist doctors widened, officials said it was unclear when a final decision on Haneef's fate would be taken.
He was arrested on 2 July on a tip-off from British police in the eastern Australian city of Brisbane after seven people, including at least four foreign doctors, were detained in Britain over three failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.
Haneef is the cousin of two of the suspects being held in Britain, including another doctor and one of the men suspected to have driven a flaming jeep into the main terminal of Glasgow airport on 30 June.
A senior British counter-terrorism expert is in Brisbane assisting the investigation that has resulted in the questioning of a total of seven Indian-born doctors in three Australian states.
She was due to help question Haneef, the only one of the men questioned to have been detained, later Monday.
The other six were released after being quizzed on the understanding that they will be available for further questioning if needed, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has said.
Four of the men were questioned in Western Australia on Friday in a swoop that included raids on two hospitals, while another Indian doctor in Sydney was also quizzed.
Haneef was singled out for arrest because he appeared to be leaving the country in a hurry on a one-way ticket bound for India, Ruddock said Monday.
"The appearance as I am told was that he had left rather hurriedly," Ruddock told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
"His wife says it's because she gave birth to a child two weeks ago. That may be well the reason but certainly the appearance was that his intention (was) to leave with speed," he added.
Officers on Sunday launched a second raid on Haneef's home, and on that of a second Indian doctor working on Queensland state's Gold Coast who was questioned and released early last week.
"Two search warrants were executed. They were required as a result of analysis of material seized during search warrants executed last week," an Australian Federal Police spokesman said.
Officers are picking through the equivalent of around 31,000 pages of documents seized in raids on the homes and workplaces of the seven questioned in connection with the British bomb plot.
But as officers scrutinised new information collected at Haneef's house, the doctor's lawyer Peter Russo said his client was being treated unfairly as all the material on the case is not being shared.
"It's difficult to work out what has actually happened because the only source of information that I have really is the media," the lawyer told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"It's very unfair," he said.
"The only way you can get a fair and balanced hearing is if both parties have an opportunity to first of all view each other's material and then make submissions based on the information," he said. - AFP/yy
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