Oh, SBS. For shame & tut -tut!

George Negus was positively salivating at the prospect of an SBS exclusive on last night's Dateline- the first since... ever!

"A fascinating piece," he said to the blushing reporter, David O'Shea, & later, "Well done!"

The exclusive information obtained? An Indian "police dossier" on Haneef handed to O'Shea by an officer whose identity, he made a point of saying, would be protected.
Pity that, 'cos it appears he forgot to ask the cop ANYTHING of importance to shed light on the purpose or content of the dossier & now no-one else will have a chance.
In fact, O'Shea seemed to have ants in his pants, such was his hurry to get the dossier onto telly before any pesky enlightening facts could get in the way.


David O'Shea: "When he gave me the document and I saw the word al-Qaeda I quickly put the document in my bag so he wouldn't take it back off me...it (the al-Qaeda reference) seems like almost a throw away comment...It's difficult to tell."



Capital Ideas: So why didn't you ask, O'Shea?





George Negus "The English is a bit garbled for a start, isn’t it? Maybe something got lost in translation"



"Perhaps, this is the question."




So why didn't you ask, O'Shea?





"“Must have come into contacts with members of terrorist entities.” (says the document) Where is the evidence?"




Why didn't you ask, O'Shea?





"...this heading "Overall assessment”, if that is the overall assessment that the Indian police are making or made perhaps at the beginning of the investigation, this is the other question, when exactly was this document written. Was it written in response to a request by the AFP or from the British police? Was it written as a response to something they had gleaned from the British or Australian newspapers? There are questions to be asked."


So why didn't you ask, O'Shea?






"if he (dossier author) had of prefaced that remark, with the words according to UK and Australian police or even UK and Australian media that Mohamed Haneef must have come into contact with members of terrorist entities and assisted, that would have made more sense and you and I probably wouldn't be sitting here now and talking about it."


Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. And it would have been bye-bye exclusive wouldn't it, boys? Honestly, we think there'd be more conclusive evidence to be gleaned from reading Haneef's tea-leaves than this dossier. But don't worry, SBS, I'm sure our fine upstanding Government & press won't take advantage of your shonky reporting to further blacken a man's good name.




The dossier (which we advise you print off & use as toilet paper) states:

Under the heading "Organisational set up":

“Alleged links with Al Qaida”

Under the heading “Overall assessment”:

“After having his education in Karnataka, Mohamed Haneef must have come into contacts with the members of terrorist entities and assisted..”

Under "General information":

“Mohamed Haneef is suspected to have rended assistance to the prime accused persons in the Glasgow Airport blast attempt.”

Oh, big deal & for shame.