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Two more doctors charged over bomb attacks on UK
2007-07-14
Two more doctors were charged on Saturday with involvement in the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow, one man in Britain and one in Australia, bringing the number accused to three. British police charged Sabeel Ahmed, 26, of Liverpool, with failing to disclose information that could have prevented an act of terrorism, London's Metropolitan Police said. Indian engineer Kafeel Ahmed, 27, Sabeel's brother, is under police guard in hospital after being badly burned when a jeep was driven into an airport terminal building in Glasgow, Scotland, and set ablaze. That attack came 36 hours after the discovery of two cars packed with fuel, gas tanks and nails primed to explode in central London. Police think the two incidents were linked. All but one of the suspects are medics from the Middle East or India. Australian Federal Police on Saturday charged a 27-year-old Indian doctor over his links with the alleged perpetrators. After being held for 12 days, Mohamed Haneef, 27, appeared in a Brisbane court charged with providing support to a terrorist organization. He was remanded in custody until Monday when his bail application will be heard. "RECKLESSNESS" Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the police charge cited recklessness, rather than intention. "The allegation being that he was reckless about some of the support he provided to that group, in particular, the provision of his (mobile phone) SIM card for the use of the group." Haneef's wife Arshiya said in Bangalore: "Everybody knows he is innocent. His only fault was to give his SIM card to his cousin Sabeel Ahmed." Haneef was detained at Brisbane airport on July 2 as he was about to board a flight to India. Keelty said the charges came after 12 days of investigation, with almost 300 police and lawyers working on the case and sifting through the electronic equivalent of 36,000 filing cabinets of material. "That is the quantity of material that has been seized in electronic form, from various locations," he told reporters in Canberra. Iraqi-trained doctor Bilal Abdulla, 27, was charged in Britain last week with conspiring to cause explosions. Three other suspects are still being held at a central London police station, a police spokeswoman confirmed. British police on Thursday released without charge the only woman among those detained in the case. Dana Asha was the wife of suspect Mohammed Asha, 26, and was arrested with him on June 30 while the pair drove on a motorway in northern England. British police can hold terrorism suspects up to 28 days without charge, but must periodically seek the permission of a judge to continue questioning them. (Additional reporting by Victoria Thieberger and James Grubel in Melbourne)
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