Trumped-up “terrorism” charge?

Dr Haneef has been charged with “recklessly providing resources, a sim card, to a terrorist organisation.”

This seems a very thin charge. It must be open to suspicion that the charge is simply a way of sidestepping the increasing restiveness about Haneef’s detention without charge and to keep him in detention. I bet bail will be opposed under section 15AA of the Crimes Act which provides that:

“a bail authority must not grant bail to a person (the defendant ) charged with, or convicted of, an offence covered by subsection (2) [which includes “a terrorism offence”] unless the bail authority is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist to justify bail”

Haneef was already reported to have said that he gave the phone to his cousin because his cousin wanted to use the “free minutes” deal which the card had. He was leaving the country. Why wouldn’t he give the SIM card away?

I don’t know how hard it is to obtain a SIM card in the UK. Presumably there are some controls in place as there now are here, but I would have thought they could be fairly easily sidestepped. As here, I also suspect that there are still SIM cards around which were obtained before identity-controls were imposed on their acquisition, not to mention SIM cards from other countries which cannot be traced and which can be operated by their international roaming capacity. The provision of a SIM card would therefore have only have provided the most minimal of support.

The offence does not even appear to have an element of actual intention. That is, it may be simply that he was reckless in the sense that he did not take care to ensure that his cousin was not a (member of) a terrorist organisation.

Monday: Dr Haneef has been granted bail, despite the Commonwealth’s  submission (predicted above) that bail not be granted.  However, the Commonwealth has now decided to detain him using its immigration powers.