This a transcript of a story which appeard on the 7.30 report (ABC TV) on 11/7/2002.
KERRY O’BRIEN: Welcome to the program.
An Australian citizen is arrested in a foreign country, flown to a second country where he is held incommunicado and interrogated for months.
Then he’s flown to a third and finally to a fourth country, where he’s now being held in a military prison with no access to his family or a lawyer.
And all without a single charge being laid.
A situation, you might think, which would have the Australian Government protesting vigorously.
But not in the case of Australian Mamdouh Habib, who’s being held by the Americans in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Both governments say he received Al Qaeda training in Afghanistan.
His family says he never crossed the border from Pakistan.
Whichever is true, it’s certain that Mamdouh Habib has been accorded none of the rights which are normally available even to Australians accused of the most serious crimes.
Tracy Bowden reports.
MAHA HABIB, WIFE: He’s a family man.
He’s very considerate.
He cares about his family so much.
He used to always spend his time with his family, you know, with his children and myself.
He even used to on the weekend, every weekend, we used to go out.
TRACY BOWDEN: This is Mamdouh Habib back in 1995 enjoying a day at the beach with his family. It’s a stark contrast to his circumstances today.
The Australian citizen is being held in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, accused of training with terrorist group Al Qaeda.
ASSOC. PROF DON ROTHWELL, FACULTY OF LAW, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY: Well, I think it’s completely unjustifiable that an Australian citizen, who was basically abducted in Pakistan, has been effectively abandoned by the Australian Government.
DARYL WILLIAMS, ATTORNEY-GENERAL: If you wander over to Afghanistan and you’re engaged in associating with organisations that are engaged in terrorism, you must expect that the consequences will be quite severe.
TRACY BOWDEN: But Maha Habib claims that her husband had never even been to Afghanistan. She says the family was planning to move to Pakistan, Mamdouh Habib was on a three-month visit there, looking at business prospects and a suitable school for his sons.
As to any connection with Al Qaeda:
MAHA HABIB: No way. No way. Why should he do it? You know, he’s been here, if he was under any military training or like they’re saying, I would know about it.
STEPHEN HOPPER, SOLICITOR: Mamdouh may or may not have done something. We believe that he hasn’t. There’s no evidence to suggest that.
But let’s say, for instance, he has. Well, he still has rights to due process under law and fair trial.
TRACY BOWDEN: Solicitor Stephen Hopper spends most of his time dealing with the everyday matters of a suburban legal practice but now he’s taken on the case of Mamdouh Habib, trying to unravel the series of events that led a 47-year-old father of four with no criminal record in Australia to be placed under military arrest a long way from home.
STEPHEN HOPPER: They’ve had him under this scrutiny for maybe two years, maybe three years, and they haven’t turned up one iota of substantial evidence against him.
TRACY BOWDEN: Mamdouh Habib was born in Egypt. He came to Australia in 1982 and became an Australian citizen in 1984.
MAHA HABIB: He’s so outspoken, with a lot of courage, and a very determined person and he’s not afraid of anything.
TRACY BOWDEN: It appears the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ASIO, first took an interest in Mamdouh Habib in 1991.
On holiday in New York City, he went along to a high profile court case.
El Sayyid Nosair was charged over the killing of militant anti-Arab Rabbi Meir Kahane. He was eventually found guilty of the murder.
MAHA HABIB: My husband met friends of his, mates at school, in Egypt.
And they said, “Have you heard about this case? There’s a case going on”.
And it was for El Sayyid Nosair.
TRACY BOWDEN: So was your husband a supporter of —
MAHA HABIB: It’s nothing to do with supporting. It’s just, you know, being there and we were interested in that case, you know.
TRACY BOWDEN: Those same old school friends later phoned Mamdouh Habib back in Australia and asked if he could help raise money for those charged over the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing. He said, “No”.
STEPHEN HOPPER: He received another call from this gentleman and he said there’s a blind cleric, his name is Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and he’s being held on charges relating to terrorist activity but the US Government isn’t giving this man his diabetic medication.
Mamdouh became upset with this and thought, “Well, this is a breach of this man’s human rights. Something has to be done.”
So what he attempted to do was to raise some money to buy this man medication.
TRACY BOWDEN: Mamdouh Habib tried unsuccessfully to raise money in the local community. His attempts to organise a protest for which he obtained a permit from police also failed.
TRACY BOWDEN: Did you agree with the crimes these men were eventually convicted of doing? Did you support what they’d done?
MAHA HABIB: No, no, nothing to do with what they’ve done. It’s just when we tried to help get some support for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for his – because he was – as I told you, he was isolated and sick, you know – just for human rights. It was something to do with the human rights.
TRACY BOWDEN: But as a result of the phone calls, Mamdouh Habib came under ASIO surveillance. The attention, says the family, took a toll.
STEPHEN HOPPER: What Mamdouh was suffering from was a severe and chronic depression, and he was getting medication for that.
We believe the primary cause of this depression was surveillance and harassment by ASIO.
MAHA HABIB: He was often asked if he can work with the ASIO, and my husband refused and said, “No way. I will never work as a spy”.
TRACY BOWDEN: ASIO declined the 7:30 Report’s request for an interview. But ASIO presumably thought why are these people taking an interest in people accused of terrorism?
MAHA HABIB: My husband has always cooperated with ASIO, and he was so outspoken person. As I told you, he always helped people without anything in return. He doesn’t expect anything in return.
TRACY BOWDEN: So by the time Mamdouh Habib left for Pakistan in July last year, he knew he was a marked man.
Six weeks later came the terrorist act that shook the world.
On September 20th, ASIO and the Australian Federal Police raided the Habib family home in Sydney.
Maha Habib told her husband about the search during their next phone conversation.
MAHA HABIB: I was crying when I was telling him.
I told him I was very, very upset and he said, “Be strong and don’t worry”. I told him that they took so many things – papers and computer and things like that.
And he told me, “Whatever they took, I’ve got nothing – we’ve got nothing to hide. We’ve done nothing. You know that”, and I said, “Yeah, I know that”, and he said, “Don’t worry about it”. So he wasn’t worried at all.
TRACY BOWDEN: And yet according to the Government, at this very moment Mamdouh Habib was training with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Just over two weeks later, October 5th, Mamdouh Habib was arrested in Pakistan.
ALEXANDER DOWNER, FOREIGN MINISTER, MAY 7: He was picked up on the, I think, Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER, MAY 19: This fellow was apprehended when he was crossing the border to re-enter the country.
DARYL WILLIAMS: He was arrested, I think, in October last year, passing from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
TRACY BOWDEN: The family claims the nearest Mamdouh Habib went to Afghanistan was the Pakistani border town of Quetta.
STEPHEN HOPPER: We know he was in Karachi. We know he was in Islamabad. We know he was in Quetta, and we know he was arrested in a town called Khuzdar, which is about 700 kilometres from the border.
TRACY BOWDEN: The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed to the 7:30 Report that the arrest had occurred in Khuzdar, but: “Law enforcements and intelligence investigations indicated that Mr Habib had been in Afghanistan and was detained after crossing the border into Pakistan.”
TRACY BOWDEN: Could you be wrong?
MAHA HABIB: About what?
TRACY BOWDEN: About the terrorist connections, about Al Qaeda?
MAHA HABIB: No way. One hundred per cent I guarantee you he’s not.
TRACY BOWDEN: Because often