Haneef's barrister lashes out at Aus govt

The barrister of Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef, charged with supporting a terrorist organisation, on Tuesday accused the Australian government of using the anti-terror laws to conceal their probe from the public.

Haneef is charged with recklessly supporting a terrorist organisation, with the Australian Federal Police alleging he supported foiled plans to detonate truck bombs in the UK.

'The record with regard to secret information is that it is secret when it is convenient to the Commonwealth,' Stephen Keim told ABC Radio.

'All that the Australian Federal Police say was he lived and associated with these people (Haneef's cousins who were accused in the failed UK terror plot), he is their second cousin. That is as high as the AFP was able to put it.'

'Now the minister is making his decision on the basis of what the AFP tells him and on what he says is secret information and yet we are seeing what is secret information published in the newspapers today,' he said.

A major leak from the investigation into Haneef was published in News Ltd papers, and Keim said he had seen nothing to suggest from the report that Haneef had a more than trivial role in the thwarted attacks.

'My client's computer had been 95 per cent interrogated (by the 11th of July) and the best that they could say was that he chatted online and he had these two conversations,' he said.

'If they had information that was condemnatory of my client why would they only charge him with recklessness, why would not they charge him with knowing that it was a terrorist organization,' he queried.

Meanwhile Haneef's lawyer Peter Russo said the government was being vindictive after it announced he will be transferred to Sydney's Villawood detention centre, the ABC reported.

Russo said he was worried Haneef will be moved as far from his lawyers as possible.

Russo said an appeal will be lodged but until then, he will try to keep him in Queensland even if it means a further stint in the Brisbane watch-house.

'Until the immigration issue is sorted out and the bail issue is sorted out, we are sort of just jammed in relation to where we go to next,' he said, adding, 'It is quite complicated -- there are a couple of aspects to it and we have not made up our minds, which way we are going to do it.'