Habib has now seen prison walls and bars in four countries since being arrested in Pakistan on Oct. 5, 2001. Australian officials claimed that he had visited Afghanistan. His wife said he went to Pakistan to look for an Islamic school for their children.

Habib was initially held for about three weeks in Pakistan, where he was visited by Australian officials and officers of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). According to Maha, they said, "You go wherever we take you," when he asked to be returned to Australia. Rather than being repatriated to Australia, the Egyptian-born Habib was handed over to authorities in Egypt, where he spent the next five months in custody without any contact with his family or legal representatives.

"My husband has not been charged," Maha said in a May 16 Militant interview. "Therefore I say that he was kidnapped by the Egyptian authorities and by the U.S. military. I can’t understand why. They accuse him of training with al Qaeda."

Maha explains that she is anxious about her husband’s health and well-being, since she has not heard from him following his arrest at the beginning of October.

Australian Federal Police and ASIO officers interrogated Mamdouh Habib along with the other Australian detainee, David Hicks, from May 16 to May 19 at the U.S. military prison, stationed on illegally-held territory of the Cuban government. The U.S. government refused permission for a lawyer to be present during the interrogations.

Washington holds 300 prisoners in brutal conditions, shackled and often blindfolded, in small cages at the prison camp. It has subjected the men to repeated interrogations while denying them legal representation, family visits, or rights accorded prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.

The Habib family’s lawyer, Stephen Hopper, said he believed that information obtained by police interviewing his client without legal representation would not be admissible in an Australian court.  
 
Denied legal assistance
Unlike other Australian citizens accused of crimes or detained overseas, who routinely receive consular assistance from the Australian government, Habib and Hicks have been denied such help. Hicks was captured by U.S.-backed Northern Alliance troops in Afghanistan in November 2001 and transferred to Guantánamo in January. His lawyer, Stephen Kenny, said that the Australian government had "washed its hands" of him.

The families and lawyers of both men believe that the government has acquiesced their detention without charges because it has determined that the men have committed no offenses under Australian law and would have to be released if they were returned here.

No evidence against Habib has been produced. In his first contact with his family since his detention, the International Committee of the Red Cross forwarded two letters, dated April 23, to his wife on May 23. In them, he denies any wrongdoing, accuses the Australian government of deserting him, and asks his wife to find "a lawyer because I’ve not [been] involve[d] with anything."

Before handing him over to the U.S. authorities, Egyptian officials tried to force Habib to renounce his Australian citizenship and call his family to join him in Egypt.

Habib’s family denies statements by Australian officials that he holds dual Australian and Egyptian citizenship, explaining that he had traveled on an Australian passport when visiting Egypt in the past.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald quoted a diplomatic source claiming that the frequency and destinations of Habib’s trips abroad over the past decade had aroused "suspicions." The Habib family’s passports were among personal items seized by officers of ASIO during a seven-hour raid on the family home on September 20 last year, which occurred while Mamdouh was overseas.

"I was brought up in Australia. My husband has been here 20 years, our children were born here," Maha Habib told the Militant. "This could happen to anyone going overseas. Why shouldn’t we travel? We have worked hard. The Australian government is not giving us our rights."

Maha Habib has spoken out publicly against the ASIO raid. Her formal complaint "has been ignored so far," she said. "ASIO is abusing their power." Asked what she thought of the proposed strengthening of ASIO’s powers, she said, "They are destroying the country--saying we are under terrorism. People come here to live peacefully."  
 
Earlier interrogation
Previously, ASIO had interviewed Habib about his activities in raising medical assistance for imprisoned Muslim cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was framed up on conspiracy charges in New York in 1995 and handed a life sentence. Maha Habib said the authorities asked her husband, "’Do you know these people?’ He had just been to the mosque and met people there involved [with the defense campaign]. After the Olympics he was chased by ASIO," she said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade released a note from Mamdouh Habib to his wife on May 24. The letter was dictated by Habib to Australian officials who visited him in Guantánamo. In it he says that he had been kept blindfolded. He writes, "I never see the sun but I see you and [the] kids every minute."

In another letter released by the department, Hicks says he has been kept "all day stuck in a small cage," and been told, "If you tell us everything you know, you will get back to Australia quicker." His lawyer said the offer could be seen as a bribe. "To have some inducement held out to him when he has been in a cage for six months is most improper. No Australian court would allow that to happen."

Attorney General Daryl Williams commented that neither Hicks nor Habib had been detained in a civilian or non-war context. "Habib was detained because of his alleged connection with what was going on in Afghanistan," he claimed. Habib’s lawyer Hopper reacted with outrage, saying, "Habib was not in Afghanistan when hostilities commenced. He is being illegally held as a prisoner in an undeclared war."

The federal government moved on May 14 to ensure that Habib’s disability pension was cut off, claiming that he had failed to notify the government agency Centrelink that he was going overseas. Maha told the Militant that the family had written a letter to notify Centrelink that her husband would be overseas for three months.

"Initially they said they would continue the payment" of the pension, she said. "Then just two days ago the manager from Centrelink called to say that it had been canceled. Now they say I will get the sole parent benefit, which is $260 less a fortnight [AUS$1 = US 57 cents]. I think that it was pressure from the government--pressure on me not to speak, not to speak out for my rights, or my husband’s rights," Maha said.

"Mamdouh has always been active, always outspoken, he helps other people without hesitation. We have been together for 20 years and he has taught me ‘never be afraid of the truth. Don’t be quiet about your rights.’

"I don’t want people to be sorry for me," she said. "I want them to wake up and see what the government is doing to its citizens, especially if they are from the Mideast. We should be entitled to be treated like citizens.

"I just want my husband back," Maha said, "The children miss him. I have to explain to them that the government is trying to frame him."

She explained that she did not believe they would bring her husband back unless she spoke out. "I have nothing to hide," she said. "People can take our case and see it as an example for others too afraid to speak out. They’re not going to break me down."

Linda Harris is a member of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union. Doug Cooper contributed to this article.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home