Sydney, Sep 7 (IANS) The Australian police have learnt from the case of India-born doctor Muhammad Haneef who was mistakenly detained on terror charges, incoming Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Tony Negus said Monday.
Negus said that the AFP had “learned from the Haneef affair”, The Australian reported Monday on its website.

The inquiry into the detention of the India-born doctor suspected of involvement in terrorism found the evidence against him was “completely deficient”.

“We took on board the comments that were made by the review,” Negus was quoted as saying after being sworn in.

“We think we’ve moved forwards a long way from there.”

He went on to say: “We’re doing a range of different things to ensure that we are at the cutting edge of law enforcement and I would like to think that going forward this is an organisation renowned throughout the world for very much the right reasons.”

Negus warned: “All the research tells us that terrorism will remain with us for a generation.

“The threat of terrorism to Australia is something we take very seriously.

“You only have to look back to the raids a few weeks ago, the alleged terrorist incidents that were being planned in this country, to see how much we must keep that at the front of our minds.”

Haneef, a former Gold Coast registrar, was held in Australia for three weeks in July 2007 after being charged with supporting a terrorist organisation by “recklessly” giving his mobile phone SIM card to people planning bomb attacks in Britain.

The charges against Haneef were eventually dropped and he returned to his family in Bangalore.

AFP dropped its investigation after over a year of pursuing the botched terrorism case against Haneef that caused the police much embarrassment and cost the taxpayer A$8.5 million.