Australia court rules Mohammed Haneef should get work visa

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Indian doctor accused of terrorism offences and barred from Australia should have his visa reinstated after he was cleared of any wrongdoing, an Australian court ruled on Friday.

A Federal Court judge in Melbourne upheld a previous appellate court order for the government to reinstate former terrorism suspect Mohammed Haneef's Australian work visa.

Haneef, a hospital doctor, was detained by police for 12 days in July and charged with providing support to a terrorist organisation by giving his mobile phone card to a cousin accused of involvement in failed car bomb attacks in the United Kingdom.

The charges were withdrawn, but Haneef was forced to return home to India when the former conservative government refused to give back his work visa.

The new Labor government said it may appeal against the ruling to Australia's peak High Court.

A separate court said that the only Guantanamo Bay inmate convicted of terrorism offences, Australian David Hicks, will have to obey a curfew and tough restrictions when he is released from jail next week.

A judge in Adelaide, where Hicks is serving out a seven-year jail term ending early on December 29, agreed to a police request for a control order on the man dubbed "Australia's Taliban".

"I'm satisfied that coupled with the defendant's views expressed and his capability and training ... that the defendant is a risk of taking part in a terrorist act," Federal Court magistrate Warren Donald told the court.