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PRESSTV Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:03:50 GMT
An Australian judge has ruled that an Australian man's claim that he was mistreated in Pakistan before being sent to a US jail could not be believed.

Habib said he would appeal. Habib, an Egyptian-born immigrant, was arrested in late 2001 in Pakistan, where he says he was held for 28 days and was interrogated by Americans before being transferred to Egypt, then six months later he was sent to the US jail at Guantanamo Bay.

Habib told the court he had been beaten "like a dog'' and electrocuted by his captors while he was in Pakistan, and that while in Egypt he was kept drugged and shackled, had his fingers broken, and was sexually molested.

He claimed that Australian officials were present during parts of his ordeal. Habib was returned to Australia in January 2005. No charges were ever filed against him, and the Australian government says he has committed no crime under Australian law. The government cancelled his passport, saying he posed a continuing security threat.

"I spent half my life in Guantanamo Bay, the rest I'm going to spend in an Australian court house,'' he told reporters outside the court. "I want to get justice, that's what I'm after.''

Habib has appeared regularly in media interviews talking about the alleged abuse. In 2007, he ran for state parliament in New South Wales on a ticket that included trying to draw attention to alleged rights abuses at Guantanamo.

BBC Thu, 22 Nov 2007,
The Australian leader has condemned party members' use of fake leaflets implying Labor backed Muslim bombers, two days before nationwide polls.

PM John Howard, who is trailing Labor rival Kevin Rudd, said the Liberal Party had not authorised the leaflets.

Distributed in a key Sydney seat, they purported to be from an Islamic group which thanked Labor for its sympathy towards the Bali nightclub attackers.

Both party leaders have been campaigning hard ahead of Saturday's election. The prime minister is seeking a fifth term in office but polls indicate Mr Rudd is maintaining a sizeable lead.

The BBC's Nick Bryant, in Sydney, says that this kind of scandal is just about the last thing Mr Howard's beleaguered party needs.

On Wednesday, Liberal Party members were caught distributing leaflets purporting to be from an Islamist group in the key Sydney marginal of Lindsay.

In the leaflet, which carries the Labor Party logo, a fake organisation - the Islamic Australia Federation - applauds Labor for supporting Islamic extremists.

It refers to the men imprisoned for the 2002 nightclub bomb attacks in Bali, which left more than 200 people dead.

"We gratefully acknowledge Labor's support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings," it said.

Labor supported the building of new mosques, the leaflet added, thanking the party for backing the entry of controversial cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali - who likened scantily-clad women to uncovered meat.

Mr Rudd has urged the Liberal Party to clarify who knew about the leaflets.

"This says everything about the desperate and desperation politics on the part of the Liberal Party on the eve of the election," he told Australian radio.

The issue has been referred to the Australian Electoral Commission and Labor has asked it to investigate whether the group acted illegally by appealing to anti-Muslim sentiment.

President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils Ikebal Patel told ABC radio that while election campaigning to date had been "fairly good" on the issue of migration, the use of the flyers was "quite despicable".

Two unidentified members of the Liberal Party face disciplinary action and volunteers who distributed the leaflets have been removed from campaign teams.