Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef will be treated as a 'terrorist' while detained in a Queensland jail and subject to special conditions, including solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, an official said on Wednesday.
Haneef was on Wednesday morning, transferred from police custody to Wolston Correctional Centre in Brisbane's south-west after failing to meet bail conditions set by Brisbane Magistrates Court on Monday.
The 27-year-old Gold Coast Hospital registrar is charged with supporting a terrorist organisation after giving a mobile phone SIM card to a relative later accused of being involved in plotting car bomb attacks in the UK.
Queensland Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence said the conditions of his detention included no contact with other inmates, meaning Haneef would be alone in a cell for all but one hour a day, when he is allowed to exercise.
{{/usCountry}}Queensland Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence said the conditions of his detention included no contact with other inmates, meaning Haneef would be alone in a cell for all but one hour a day, when he is allowed to exercise.
{{/usCountry}}Haneef would also face a different regime to that of other prisoners, she said.
"A terrorist prisoner is required to be held apart from the mainstream prison population, so he will be held in a segregated environment, when he moves around the prison he will be accompanied by two prison officers," she said.
"Anyone who is charged under terrorist legislation is obviously seen as a greater threat to the good order of our society than other type of prisoners," she said.
Spence defended the high security around Haneef's transfer in an armoured police van on Wednesday. "You have to appreciate he is being treated as a terrorist, that's the charges against him at this point in time, so it is appropriate that when he is moved from one place to another that he is heavily guarded."