The Associated Press
20 August 2007ISLAMABAD, Pakistan:
A Pakistani accused of using his computer skills to help al-Qaida has been released after three years in custody, a government official and the man’s lawyer said Monday.
Pakistani officials have said that information from freed suspect Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan quickly led them to a Tanzanian wanted for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, which killed more than 200 people.Khan, who was captured in the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore in July 2004, has also been linked with terror plots in the U.S. and Britain, and to the arrests of suspects in Britain.
Deputy Attorney General Naheeda Mehboob Ilahi said in the Supreme Court on Monday that Khan, believed to be in his late 20s, had been released and had returned to his home in the southern city of Karachi.
Ilahi provided no details.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/20/asia/AS-GEN-Pakistan-Terror-Suspect.php
This is just the latest in Pakistan’s catch and release policy:
US outraged as Pakistan frees Taliban fighters
By Isambard Wilkinson in Peshawar
Last Updated: 1:54am BST 15/09/2006Pakistan’s credibility as a leading ally in the war on terrorism was called into question last night when it emerged that President Pervez Musharraf’s government had authorised the release from jail of thousands of Taliban fighters caught fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Five years after American-led coalition forces overthrew the Taliban during Operation Enduring Freedom, United States officials have been horrified to discover that thousands of foreign fighters detained by Pakistan after fleeing the battleground in Afghanistan have been quietly released and allowed to return to their home countries.
Pakistani lawyers acting for the militants claim they have freed 2,500 foreigners who were originally held on suspicion of having links to al-Qa’eda or the Taliban over the past four years.
Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/15/wpak15.xml
Just fanfuckingtastic.
The list of the released operatives and leaders include:
Ghulam Mustafa: He was once close to Osama bin Laden, has intimate knowledge of al Qaeda’s logistics and financing and its nexus with the military in Pakistan.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HA05Df03.html
Fazl-e-Raziq: A senior aide to Osama bin Laden, and “an ethnic Pakhtoon resident of Swabi district of the North West Frontier Province.”
http://www.rediff.com/us/2001/nov/21ny5.htm
Mansour Hasnain: A member of the group that kidnapped and murdered Danny Pearl. He also was “a militant of the Harkat-al-Mujahedin group, is one of those who hijacked an Indian Airlines jet in December 1999 and forced New Delhi to release three militants — including Omar and Azhar.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,2763,651800,00.html
Gul Ahmed Shami & Hamid Noor: Al-Qaeda foot soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. “I want to be the next Osama bin Laden,” said Shami in 2001. “Allah is with us. The Americans have technology but they don’t have the courage to face death, which we do. I will be there until my death if need be. I know I probably won’t come back,” said Hamid.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/10/wpak310.xml
The Pakistani government let go these pieces of Islamofascist human garbage under the auspices of the “Waziristan Accord”, which agreed to “release prisoners held in military action and would not arrest them again”. Let me get this straight: This is how that candy ass Musharraf plans on fighting the GWOT? ‘We’ll agree to let go some of the worst terrorist scumbags on the planet and they’ll just go home to their 2 bedroom caves, ugly wives, and camels never to make bombs again’.
Hey Musharraf, I have this beuooooooootiful bridge situated in Brooklyn. For sale. Cheap.