Jobless Dr. Haneef keen to go abroad for studies or work

Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef, who returned to Bangalore after a terrorism charge against him was dropped by a Brisbane court in August, is keen to go abroad and resume his studies or work.

Brisbane, Oct 1 : Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef, who returned to Bangalore after a terrorism charge against him was dropped by a Brisbane court in August, is keen to go abroad and resume his studies or work.

In an interview with ABC TV's Four Corners program, Dr Haneef said he was determined to regain his visa.

"The prospect, you know, of going abroad for further studies anywhere in the world or to work for any other institution in the world or attending any conference, anything like that, it all depends on me having a clear record," he said.

"I don't have a job at this time and I'm just relying on my... savings and what I've done," news.com.au quoted him as saying.

Responding to a query on the initial charges made against him that he was trying to abscond from Australia when he tried to leave Brisbane on a one-way ticket to India on July 2, Haneef dismissed it by saying that he was not in a "false identity going out leaving the country."

"If I were to be absconding I wouldn't have told the hospital - they have all the details with them, they have ... my home phone number, they have my address and ... I was travelling with my documents with me and I had all my proofs, I was not in a false identity going out leaving the country," he said.

Dr Haneef added that he had been short of money and had asked his father-in-law to book him a ticket home to see his wife and newborn baby, without specifying whether he wanted a return ticket.

He said the mother of Sabeel Ahmed, whom British police had charged with withholding information about a terrorist attack, had alerted him to an issue with the SIM card he had lent Sabeel in 2006, after which he had tried unsuccessfully to contact British police about it.

He admitted visiting Sabeel's brother, Kafeel Ahmed, who had been at the wheel of a blazing jeep that crashed into Glasgow airport on June 30, twice at Cambridge, but said: "I have never come across any radical thoughts or any extremist ideas of such kind from him."

Dr Haneef added that he was unaware of Kafeel's activism in politics surrounding the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya.

ANI