Habib 'owes Muslims an explanation'

News.Au ^ | 02/16/05 | Trudy Harris

[Pikamax]

Habib 'owes Muslims an explanation' By Trudy Harris February 16, 2005 From: FREED terror suspect Mamdouh Habib owed Australia's Muslim community an explanation about what he was doing in Pakistan and Afghanistan before his capture, the leader of a major Muslim community group said yesterday

Lebanese Muslim Association president Keysar Trad said Mr Habib should have held a press conference last month to fully answer all questions relating to time spent in those countries. In a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night, Mr Habib, released without charge from Guantanamo Bay last month, refused to answer those questions, saying he would only answer a judge in court.

Advertisement: However, he has never been charged and he is unlikely to appear before a court.

Mr Trad blamed his Sydney lawyer Stephen Hopper for this refusal, saying "a more experienced counsel would have advised him to answer the questions about what he was actually doing in Afghanistan".

Australian Federal Police chief Mick Keelty revealed in federal parliament yesterday that Mr Habib had offered his services to al-Qaeda before his capture, "almost as a mercenary".

Mr Trad said Mr Hopper had alienated the Habib family from many in the Islamic community with inflammatory comments. "Despite these statements, the community still has sympathy for this long-suffering family," Mr Trad said.

Mr Hopper has criticised the Muslim heartland in southwestern Sydney for failing to help Mr Habib's wife Maha and her four children during Mr Habib's almost three years in US custody in Guantanamo Bay. Mr Hopper has referred to some Muslims as "furry-faced fools" a term Mr Trad said yesterday was almost "racist bigotry".

Mrs Habib and Mr Hopper have also attacked the spiritual leader of Australia's Muslims for failing to provide her family with emotional support while they waited for his release.

And Mrs Habib said she pleaded with the Lebanese Muslim Association that runs Sydney's largest mosque in Lakemba for money because she was often destitute. But Mrs Habib and Mr Hopper said the LMA offered just $150.

Mrs Habib said she asked Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali to visit her children, who were missing their father and needing someone to talk to.

"During our ordeal, Sheik Taj has visited us once on his own and he brought chocolate for the children and then we have not seen him again," she said in an interview with the country's largest Arabic newspaper, An-Nahar.

"I went back to get in touch with the Mufti and I asked him to come and visit us more but he was always busy."

Sheik Hilali declined to be interviewed yesterday, saying only "we always fulfil our obligations and God is the best witness to what we do".

Mr Trad rejected the claims, saying the LMA had given the family "a lot more than $150". But he said other families had also needed its services in recent years.

"We don't think we abandoned her at all, but the community has a long list of obligations. There are people in our community on bridging visas, people who are destitute. We are trying to help them too," he said, denying the LMA did not help because Mr Habib was a terrorist suspect.

"We don't think he is a terrorist at all. And his release has only further confirmed his innocence."

But Islamic community leaders said yesterday some were reluctant to help the Habib family as they were unsure what Mr Habib was doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan before he was seized.

ASIO claims Mr Habib trained in terrorist camps, but his family says he left Sydney after a falling-out with community members to find an Islamic school overseas for his children to attend.

One leader, who declined to be named, said: "He was openly supporting Osama bin Laden and jihad in Chechnya before he left Sydney. And while they (the community leaders) do not think he is a threat to Australian society, they don't want to support him because of that either."