Asked about Andrews’s remark, Haneef said he wanted the Australian Immigration Minister to come forward. “I don’t know what the reasons are...his withholding information from the press to cancel my visa,” he told reporters.

However, Haneef was not forthcoming on whether he would sue the Australian Government, only asserting that he would like to return to work as a doctor there and was willing to fight to get his visa back.

Asked whether he was victimised because he was an Asian Muslim, Haneef said: “There might be an element of truth in it...I suspect.”

“I am not a victim of international conspiracy, but Australian conspiracy,” Haneef said, adding, he does not wish to see anybody victimised in the name of terrorism. “My family suffered a great deal as a result of what happened to me.” Haneef’s lawyer Peter Russo, who waged a successful battle to free him, said the Australian Federal Police had taken every item of the doctor’s personal belongings when they arrested him on July 2 from Brisbane airport. “If this does not make a person feel like a victim of some sort, then what would?” Russo asked.

Haneef also spoke up for the parents of his cousins Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed, linked to the Glasgow terror attack, saying they needed emotional support at this time and it was not their fault that such things happened.

About accepting any job in the country, he said he has kept all his options open. “Now, I want to spend some time with my family.” Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Monday offered a job in a government hospital to Haneef at a meeting at his official residence. Kumaraswamy said he was very happy that an “innocent and respectable person, who was harassed, has been released.”

... contd.