THE former Howard government ministers Philip Ruddock and Alexander Downer have again refused to apologise to Mamdouh Habib, despite the former Guantanamo Bay prisoner being cleared as a terrorism suspect and finally getting his passport back.
Mr Ruddock, the former attorney-general, told the Herald yesterday he was not privy to information about the decision and could not comment. However, he said that ''if I had done something I knew to be inappropriate I would apologise''.
Mr Downer, the former foreign affairs minister, declined to comment on the decision to clear Mr Habib of being a threat to national security, despite saying last month he still believed him to be a ''terrible person''.
Mr Habib, pictured, told the Herald yesterday the first place he would visit was Egypt, where he was detained nearly 10 years ago and tortured as a terrorism suspect. He said he wanted to travel to his birthplace to visit the graves of his father, mother and sister who all died while he was grounded in Australia.
''I want to see their graves,'' an emotional Mr Habib said. ''I was not allowed to visit them before they passed away. My sister died a few months ago, my mother a year ago and my father just after my release.''
He also wants to visit Egypt to assist his lawsuit against Egyptian officials - including the Vice-President, Omar Suleiman - for his detention and torture in 2001.
Mr Habib was arrested in Pakistan in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and then flown by the CIA to Egypt, where he was held for six months and tortured.
While he was there he says he was drugged, subjected to beatings, was hung by the feet, given electric shocks and suffered water torture. He said he was interrogated by the then head of Egyptian intelligence, Mr Suleiman, who was apparently known for supervising the interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects.
Mr Habib was then taken to Guantanamo Bay, where he was held for three more years before being released in January 2005 without charge.
He returned to Australia and sued the federal government, saying it was complicit in his rendition and torture. He also took action to have his passport returned but failed after the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation said he remained a threat to national security.
Late last year, after an Egyptian security guard said he had seen Australian officials in the Egyptian prison, the government gave Mr Habib a secret compensation payout in exchange for dropping his lawsuit.
Last month US documents revealed by WikiLeaks backed Mr Habib's claim that he had been detained ''under extreme duress in Egypt'', further undermining claims by the former government that it did not know he had been taken to Egypt under the CIA's rendition program.
Mr Habib said his passport was delivered to his home this week after a meeting with an ASIO official who, he said, personally apologised for his suffering.
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