THE detention of two doctors on the Gold Coast in connection with inquiries into this week's events in Britain is the second time the medical profession has been drawn into a terrorism investigation in Australia. In March 2004, a University of NSW medical student, Izhar ul-Haque, now 24, of Glenwood in Sydney's north-west, became the first person in Australia to be charged with training with a terrorist organisation.Ul-Haque, who is on $200,000 bail awaiting trial in the Supreme Court in October, is alleged to have travelled to Pakistan in early 2003 and received weapons and combat training during a three week visit to a camp run by terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba or LeT. Last February, ul-Haque lost a bid in the High Court to have his charges dropped.
During his committal hearing, ul-Haque gave evidence he was only ever going to work as a medic in a camp. The offence for which he has been charged carries a 25-year sentence. Lashkar-e-Taiba was only placed on the Federal Government's list of banned terrorist organisations in 2003. During evidence at his committal it was alleged that ul-Haque left for the training after failing his second year in a medicine degree.
In a letter he wrote to his parents tendered in evidence he allegedly said: "I'm fed up with Westerners. Western patients look at me as if I'm a frog. They don't wish to speak English to me. How can I spend five to six years with them?"
After completing the 20-day course, he returned to Sydney to resume his medical studies. His father had also intervened, asking his son to leave the training camp and return to Australia.