Australia wants more time with Haneef

“If it’s required, we will go back to the magistrate. What we’re doing here is applying the law we operate under in these circumstances,” said Keelty.

“Something in the order of 120 gigabytes of computer data is being examined. That’s the equivalent of 31,000 single page documents. It’s one of the reasons the matter takes so long,” said Australia’s Attorney General Philip Ruddock.

Haneef (27),is one of six Indian doctors to be questioned in Australia over the suspected al Qaeda-linked plot in Britain. The other five have already been released, without any charges pressed against them.

Police had asked for a five-day extension on Monday, but a Brisbane judge allowed only 48 more hours—meaning till 6 pm local time on Wednesday—after which police will have 12 hours to question Haneef, release him, or apply for another detention warrant.

“What we are estimating is the amount of material that needs to be examined on both sides of the globe, the material that’s been seized in the UK and the material seized here,” Keelty said.

Two car bombs primed to explode in London’s bustling theatre and nightclub district were discovered the day before a Jeep Cherokee crashed into the terminal building at Glasgow airport on June 30 and burst into flames.

A police agent has travelled to India to work with authorities there on more than 30,000 documents seized during searches in three Australian states, including Haneef’s laptop. British police are also assisting their Australian counterparts.

Haneef’s lawyer, Peter Russo, on Tuesday alleged his client was being denied justice with no access to bail provisions and crucial information being withheld by the authorities. “There’s no sort of safety net, there’s no way of the system being balanced for our client to be accorded any sort of rights or natural justice that we are all entitled to receive under our system,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.

Several leading civil rights lawyers and a former Australian High Court chief justice have criticised the anti-terrorism laws. They allow detention without charge. Ruddock, however, said the laws were reasonable and in reality were likely to lead to shorter detention periods than in the UK, where police were able to hold militant suspects for up to 28 days without charge.

Haneef was detained eight days ago while trying to leave Australia with a one-way ticket to India.