Australia arrests UK bomb suspect

Australian residency

 

Under Australian federal counter-terrorism laws, suspects can be held without charge for three days, and for longer periods with court approval.

The man had been working as a medical registrar at the Gold Coast hospital in eastern Queensland state.

 

Ruddock did not say what the man’s alleged involvement in the British plots was, or whether other people in Australia were under investigation.

 

Mick Keelty, the Australian federal police commissioner, said the suspect had not been on any Australian intelligence watch lists before a tip-off by British authorities.

A spokeswoman for North Cheshire Hospitals told the AFP news agency on Tuesday that both the man arrested in Brisbane and a doctor detained in Liverpool had worked at the Halton Hospital in the northwest of England.

Security has been tightened across Britain after two cars packed with gas canisters and nails were found in central London and a blazing jeep was crashed into Glasgow airport.

On Tuesday, police carried out a controlled explosion on a car near a Glasgow mosque and a terminal of London’s Heathrow airport was briefly evacuated due to a suspect package.

 

Backlash fears

Meanwhile, Muslim community leaders in UK voiced concern over “rising hostility” since the alert level in Britain was raised to “critical”, its highest level.
  
Police are investigating possible racist motives for a number of incidents this week in Scotland, including an attack on an Asian newsagent in Glasgow.
  
“In some ways it was expected as there was a backlash after September 11 and 7/7,”Osama Saeed, the Muslim Association of Britain’s Scottish spokesman, said referring to the July 7, 2005 suicide  bombings which killed 52 in London.
  
“I think we did have a sense of foreboding about it. But we have got to stress to people we are in this together and we are all in the same boat. We have all been victims,” he said.