Pakistan Ready to Surrender Sept 11 Suspect to US
Mon Sep 16, 7:17 AM ET
By Imran Maqbool
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan said on Monday it was prepared to extradite key al Qaeda suspect Ramzi Binalshibh to the United States after completing its own investigations and legal formalities.
Binalshibh is said to have been a prominent member of an al Qaeda cell based in the German city of Hamburg and is accused of having played a key role in planning the September 11 attacks on the United States along with another member of that cell, Mohamed Atta.
The German government had issued an international arrest warrant for the Yemeni national, but said Sunday it was prepared to stand aside in favor of Washington.
Binalshibh is being held in Pakistan in a secret, high-security location, officials say. He was captured in the sprawling port city of Karachi after a three-hour shootout on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
"Pakistan is obliged under international law to hand over the suspect to the country where they are wanted," Pakistani Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider told reporters in Karachi.
"But there is a legal procedure for such an extradition and that would be followed."
But Haider retracted an earlier interior ministry statement that Pakistan was holding a second high-profile al Qaeda suspect after a series of raids in Karachi last week in which a total of 12 people were arrested.
"We have completed our investigations," he said. "The only high profile suspect is Ramzi (Binalshibh) and the rest are his Yemeni guards. There is no other high-profile suspect with us."
Binalshibh is one of the most important al Qaeda members to be taken into custody over the past year, although he was not as high in the organization as Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in March.
Secretary of State Colin Powell called Binalshibh "a pretty big fish." "This is perhaps within the circle of those who were responsible for 9/11," he said in a television interview Sunday.
CLOAK OF SECRECY
If Zubaydah's case is anything to go by, Binalshibh is likely to be spirited out of the country under a thick cloak of secrecy.
Zubaydah was handed over to U.S. authorities shortly after his arrest in the city of Faisalabad and is now being interrogated at a secret location outside the United States.
Monday, the Urdu-language Pakistani newspaper Ausaf quoted "informed sources" as saying Binalshibh had already been shifted to a U.S. naval ship off the Pakistani coast.
But Pakistani government officials insisted Binalshibh was still inside the country, where they said American officials were leading his interrogation.
"The U.S. FBI has intensified their investigations and most of the time they are interrogating the suspects," a Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters. "The indication is that they will be extradited soon."
U.S. officials have said Binalshibh, who was refused a visa into the United States at least four times before September 11, 2001, wanted to join the 19 hijackers involved in the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Pakistani police said U.S. agents had traced Binalshibh to a three-story building in an upmarket district of Karachi thanks to a satellite phone call.
Security and intelligence agents met armed resistance when they raided the building Wednesday and had to call in hundreds of police to help flush the men out.
Two al Qaeda suspects were killed in the ensuing shootout and at least six police were wounded.
"Clearly this was a slipshod operation," the Daily News commented in an editorial Monday. "Under the circumstances it is a relief there weren't any civilian casualties.
"Pakistan should tell the U.S. that it needs the logistics, intelligence and other necessary equipment to carry out such operations more effectively with minimum danger to its personnel," it said. "And its international allies must provide such services."
Pakistan became a key U.S. ally in the war on terror after the September 11 attacks, but many people feel the country has not been properly rewarded for its staunch support of Washington since then. |
