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fakin' it .....
It’s hard to know why Philip Ruddock decided to speak out in recent days about his time as Attorney General in the Howard Government.
Based on Ruddock’s own comments, it doesn’t appear he paid a lot attention to what was happening in three key agencies for which he had ultimate ministerial responsibility - the Australian Federal Police, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
Ruddock says he didn’t know whether his Cabinet colleague Kevin Andrews - who clearly had a need to know -saw a key ASIO assessment that Mohamed Haneef was not a security threat. Nor did he know that the AFP had failed to give the DPP crucial documents before Haneef appeared in court on terrorism - related charges.
Ruddock’s revelations about what he didn’t know about the treatment of an Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib are even more astonishing.- By John Richardson at 25 Aug 2008 - 8:12pm
- John Richardson's blog
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the truth will out .....
A man described as an ASIO agent stood by as a naked US marine wearing a condom threatened Mamdouh Habib with rape, the former Guantanamo Bay inmate alleges.
In a book to be published next week, Mr Habib says he saw the words "Allah Akbar"' [God is great] written on the condom to compound his humiliation.
The claims are detailed in My Story, excerpts of which will appear in Good Weekend tomorrow.
The book includes Mr Habib's first explanation of why he was in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks.
Australian intelligence agencies have long accused Mr Habib of training with al-Qaeda during that period but Mr Habib says he fled to Afghanistan some weeks before the attacks after Pakistani police had abducted him and shot one of his companions while they were on a business trip.
Mr Habib recounts in excruciating detail the torture he says he was subjected to by Pakistani and Egyptian security agencies after his arrest in early October 2001, and describes the grim reality of life in Guantanamo Bay, where he was subsequently imprisoned.
ASIO Agent Watched My Torture, Claims Habib