The Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) has taken the unusual step of publicly dismissing media reports claiming that Dr Mohamed Haneef, recently arrested on terrorism charges, was plotting to blow up a landmark building on Australia’s Gold Coast tourist strip and had been taking piloting lessons.

Reports in two News Ltd newspapers in Australia – the Sunday Mail and the Herald Sun – claimed that the AFP had downloaded 31,000 pages of documents from Dr Haneef’s computer which included photographs of a landmark Gold Coast building and its foundations, as well as evidence that Dr Haneef was among a group of doctors who had been learning to fly in Queensland.

However, AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty said today that there is no truth to the reports, and the information had not come from the AFP. “There has been significant misreporting on many aspects of this case,” he said in a statement.

The Commissioner’s dismissal of the sensational reports came after Queensland Premier Peter Beattie threw down the gauntlet and said the case was becoming farcical. “I have to say I was quite angry when I read the story this morning sourced from the Federal Police,” he said. “I turn on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and the Federal Police are refusing to confirm whether the story is true or not. For heaven's sake, this is starting to look like the keystone cops, to be frank, and I think Queenslanders are entitled to know. People have got a right to know - this is not some game. If there is seriously some sort of threat, then let’s see the photos, let’s release them. The lawyers said that they’ve never heard this before. I just think we are being treated like mugs and I don’t think that’s good enough.”

Yet Mr Keelty defended the AFP’s earlier silence. He said, “It is neither practical, nor the role of the AFP, to correct every wrong assertion or piece of speculation that has been put forward. We will be taking the extraordinary step of contacting Dr Haneef’s lawyer to correct the record.”

Dr Haneef, a 27 year-old Indian-trained doctor, was arrested at Brisbane International Airport in Queensland on July 2, after British police investigating the attempted bombings in London and Glasgow tipped off Australian authorities that Dr Haneef was a suspect in the UK terror plots.

Police prosecutors in Queensland initially claimed that Dr Haneef’s mobile phone SIM card had been found in a burning jeep at Glasgow Airport, but have since conceded that that was not the case. The SIM card was found on Dr Haneef’s second cousin, Sabeel Ahmed, 26, who has been charged in Britain with failing to disclose information that could have prevented a terror attack.

Dr Haneef now stands charged of “recklessly supporting terrorism” by providing his second cousin with his SIM card before leaving Britain for Australia in July 2006. As he awaits trial, he has not entered a plea, has had his Australian visa cancelled and remains in an immigration detention center despite an earlier magistrate’s ruling that granted him release on bail.

Kafeel Ahmed, another second cousin of Dr Haneef, remains under police guard in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Scotland, after crashing a flaming jeep into the Glasgow Airport main terminal on June