Habib to pay back $10,000 pension

By IAN McPHEDRAN
February 21, 2005


AUSTRALIAN terror suspect Mamdouh Habib will have to repay up to $10,000 in pension payments he received while living in terrorist camps overseas.

During his numerous trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan between 1999 and 2001, Habib was drawing a disability support pension of about $470-a-fortnight.
He did not tell Centrelink he was abroad for a total of about 11 months during that time.
Centrelink routinely conducts inquiries into overpayments and people can be forced to repay funds.

Everyone receiving a taxpayer-funded support payment must notify the government if they leave the country.
The disability support pension is paid for a maximum of 13 weeks while a person is overseas.
Senior government sources have told The Daily Telegraph that Habib spent months in al-Qaeda linked terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan while drawing his pension for chronic depression.

It was revealed that both he and Australia terror suspect David Hicks were at a high-level al-Qaeda leadership training camp in Kabul just before September 11, 2001.
Prior to that government sources said Mr Habib trained with the al-Qaeda offshoot, Lashkar e-Toiba in neighbouring Pakistan.

In 1998 and early 1999 he spent four months overseas and was away for another month late in 1999 and into 2000.
He travelled offshore for a further three months later in 2000 and another three months from July 2001.

It is claimed that proceeds from the sale of his coffee shop funded his extensive travels.
His lawyer Stephen Hopper said his client was pursuing a cleaning business opportunity in Pakistan when he was detained.
"He was looking at doing this for a year or two and then, apparently, if this business was what it was made out to be, he would have set himself up," he told ABC TV.

According to Government sources, material removed from Habib's home, including letters, e-mails and faxes, showed his strong interest in joining extremist groups overseas.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock would not comment on the specifics of Mr Habib's case yesterday due to privacy laws.

But he said the government's policy on reclaiming over payments was clear.
"There are policy positions that we take very clearly, and if people leave and have no entitlement to take pension entitlement or another form of benefit when they're abroad, and they have done so, then we seek to recover it," he said.

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