The Minister for Foreign Affairs,

The Hon Alexander Downer, MP

Parliament House,

CANBERRA. ACT. 2600. May 14,2005.

Sir,

As you are aware, Australian citizen, Mr Mamdohh Habib travelled to Pakistan in September, 2001.

Mr Habib was detained by Pakistani authorities on October 5, 2001. He was subsequently rendered ‘extra-judiciously’ from Pakistan to Egypt, before being handed-over to US authorities & subsequently moved, again ‘extra-judiciously’, to Afghanistan & then to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

After being illegally detained, primarily by the US administration, for more than three years, Mr Habib was released & returned to Australia earlier this year.

Also as you are aware, Mr Habib has not been charged with any offence against any law of any country.

Against this background, I am concerned with public comments attributed to you on May 4, 2005 regarding Mr Habib. In particular, you are reported as saying:

“In the case of Habib, in the end the administration decided they didn’t want to use all of the information they had available to them & that was of course for security reasons. Bearing in mind they weren’t in a position to proceed with a prosecution in the military commission, we thought it appropriate that he should come back to Australia.