British police today focused on at least four physicians with roots outside Britain, including a doctor seized at an Australian airport, in the investigation into failed car bombings in Glasgow and London.
At least four of the eight suspects were identified as doctors from Iraq, Jordan and India, while staff at a Glasgow hospital said two others detained were a junior doctor and a medical student.
One of the doctors from India, 27-year-old Muhammad Haneef, was arrested at Brisbane airport while trying to board a flight with a one-way ticket, the Australian attorney general said. Authorities were questioning a second doctor, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.
Haneef worked in 2005 as a temporary doctor at Halton Hospital in England, hospital spokesman Mark Shone said. Another 26-year-old man arrested in Liverpool also practiced at the hospital as well as at nearby Warrington Hospital, Shone said.
(ENS adds from New Delhi: Asked to comment on reports of involvement of Indians, Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta said: “As of now, it is a British investigation.” He said India would extend any cooperation, if sought.
E Ahamed, Minister of State for External Affairs, told The Indian Express that “the Indian High Commissioner in Canberra is in touch with Australian authorities.”)
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said Haneef was being held under counterterrorism laws that allow him to be detained without charges being immediately filed.
Meanwhile, British police did not confirm media reports that the man who drove a flaming Jeep into Glasgow airport was Khalid Ahmed, a doctor.
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