|
|
|
|
Caught in terror's tangled
web
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Over the past years, many
hundreds of suspects have been rounded up in the
United States in the "war on terror". Some have
been tried and convicted, others set free.
But the legal process is not quite as
clear-cut as guilty or innocent. US security
agencies, be it the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence
Agency, homeland security or immigration, are
bound by defined laws and regulations regarding
detention and interrogation.
Contacts
associated with the European intelligence
community and now deeply integrated with the US
intelligence community based in Washington
explained to Asia Times Online recently that there
is an organized mechanism under which suspects who
cannot be further interrogated in the US because
of legal complexities are sent to "outsourced"
facilities in another country. "Already, some top
al-Qaeda operators, including Khalid Sheikh
Mohammd and Khalid bin al-Attash, are under
interrogation in outsourced US facilities in
Jordan, Morocco and other places," the contacts
say.
This is one such story.
About 40 kilometers from bustling cosmopolitan
Karachi, Malir is a rustic town perceived by
downtown Karachiites as a place where they would
fear for the safety of their belongings, besides
spoiling their clothes with dust. Indeed, the
ordinary Karachiite views the area as a hotbed of
ethnic and sectarian tension.
In an area
in Malir near a bus junction, a thatch-roofed
hotel is a haven for drug addicts where ordinary
folk in their wildest imagination would not even
dream of passing a few hours.
Yet this is
where Nasir Ali Mubarak now has to spend his days,
killing endless time at the hotel, and at night
sleeping on the back seats of a bus.
Everything goes horribly
wrong
Pakistan-born
Nasir, now 36, grew up in
the United Arab Emirates after his family moved
there when he was three years old. As a youth,
his dream was to fly, and he took some lessons
in the emirates. An instructor suggested he
go to the United States to learn flying better, which he
did, along with another young man, Abdul Hakim
Murad. In the early 1990s they attended several
flight schools in Texas and New York, where they
roomed together and shared expenses.
Then
Nasir moved to Corning in northern California.
Murad stayed with him for two to three weeks,
after which, says Nasir, Murad went his own way.
Murad is now serving life plus 60 years
after being convicted in 1995 for plotting to blow
up 11 US airliners over the Pacific Ocean and
planting a bomb that killed a passenger aboard a
Philippine airplane. Murad allegedly admitted
connections to Osama bin Laden and the upper
echelons of al-Qaeda.
In August
2002, apparently reneging on an agreement with
Nasir, FBI agents handed him over to intelligence
agents in Pakistan. He was ostensibly deported because
he overstayed his visa. Prior to September 11,
2001, Nasir had submitting to a series of
interviews with the FBI, and passed a lie-detector test.
Pre-September 11, the FBI appeared convinced of
Nasir's claims that his only connection with Murad
was a shared interest to learn flying. After the
attacks, the FBI seemed to change its mind.
Nasir is married to Stephanie Jolley
Mubarak, a US citizen, has two children, and ran
an airplane repainting and commercial flying
business in Corning prior to his deportation.
Nasir's story
"You just have to
go through newspaper material or surf the 'Net with
my name and you will find that all say that Nasir
is an innocent person. Yet I was deported from the
US to Pakistan," Nasir told Asia Times Online,
while clutching copies of the San Francisco
Chronicle and the Chico News and Review in which
he is featured as the lead story.
"At the
time of my deportation I thought that my bad days
were over and I would be able to live happily in
Pakistan, and then at a suitable time make another
bid to go back to the US, where my wife Stephanie,
my children Hina and Adnan, my business and my
assets are. However, it [my return] turned out to
be a horrible nightmare and a new episode of
investigation which was more brutal in nature,"
Nasir said with a shattered expression.
Nasir's plight received wide attention
in the US, and when he was arrested after being
sent back to Pakistan some publications expressed
surprise. The Chico News and Review carried
comments by a Pakistani diplomat, Imran Ali, who
said it was "very odd" for the US government to
find someone suspicious, and then hand him over to
the Pakistani government. Usually, he said, it
worked in the opposite direction.
Nasir
picked up his story. "Soon after I arrived at
Islamabad airport I was picked up by ISI
[Inter-Services Intelligence] officials. They
blindfolded me with a hood and drove me to an
unknown place. From the feeling of my feet I felt
that it was some underground place. They uncovered
my face and gave me a paper and pen to write my
biography, especially the events from September 11
to August 2002, when I was sent to Pakistan.
"I suggested to them to refer to the
Internet and call the relevant US authorities, who
would tell them that I was innocent - that's why
they [the Americans] set me free. But my plainclothed ISI
official said, 'You are only here because US
authorities asked us to interrogate you and report
back to them.'"
Nasir continued: "After 28
days in detention I was informed that they were
setting me free. I was so much broken in those 28
days that all my feelings burst out into a storm
of tears and I questioned the officer, 'What have
you got by keeping me here when I told you in the
first place all about my ordeals and that I was
cleared by the US authorities?' The officer patted
me on my shoulder and said that I was clear from
all scrutiny and would be able to lead the life of
a normal person."
Nasir then asked the
officials to return his belongings, which included
US$500, a gold chain, a digital camera and
addresses in a diary, including contacts for his
relatives. These were returned, although only $300
was given back. An ISI agent then asked him to
hand over these dollars so he could change them in
Pakistani rupees. Nasir gave him $100, and
received only Rs2,000, when at market rates he
should have gotten Rs6,000.
Nasir stayed in
Islamabad and contacted his wife in the US and
brothers in Dubai in the UAE, and they sent him
some money. His wife traveled to Islamabad and
persuaded him not to return to the US for a while
and try to settle in Pakistan, the UAE or
elsewhere to work as a pilot, and then she would
join him.
Nasir failed to get a job in
Pakistan, and in July 2004 he went to Malaysia to
try his luck, but again without success. He
explained the situation to his friends in the US,
who advised him to apply for a US visa again and
fight his case in the US.
He approached
the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, which kept his
travel documents and gave him a date for an
interview. On the given date he appeared at the
embassy, where he met with two officials in a private
room.
"They opened a file and said that
they knew each and everything about me and were
sympathetic. They suggested that the only way they
could help me get my life back in the US was if I
helped them get a few Arabs who were mixed in with
Tabligih Jamaat [a Muslim preaching group]. They
suggested I spend some time in a mosque in Kuala
Lumpur, and then I would get some leads to report
back to US officials," Nasir said.
"I agreed to the proposal, but on condition that
they let me go to the US first, and then I would
be ready to render all my services to them. I
told them of my language proficiency in Arabic,
but they already knew that and insisted that I
start working in Malaysia, and then they would send
me back. I turned down the proposal. They gave
me time to rethink, and handed me RM1,000
[about $260], which I kept as I was nearly
broke."
Nasir went back to the US Embassy
a few days later and insisted on his condition to
be sent to the US, after which he would work as a
FBI proxy in the Muslim community anywhere in the
world. Embassy officials refused the proposal and
Nasir left the building.
After walking
about a kilometer he was picked up by Malaysian
authorities. "They kept me for 10 days and kept
asking why I was in the US Embassy. An officer
informed me that he had special powers to grill me
if I did not cooperate. He told me that he could
keep me for two years in detention, and after that
if again I lied to him he would send me to prison
for four more years. And only after that would I
have the rights to appear in a court of law. I was
not ready to face this new ordeal, and again I
spelled out each and every detail of my past, amid
tears, to the officer. The officer silently stood
up and went away.
"A few days later he
came back and said the Americans had told the
Malaysian authorities that I was a terrorist. But
he said he had studied my case thoroughly and he
had no problem setting me free. Up to then I had
been quite comfortable in prison as the officer
used to bring me good food and was very kind to
me. He also gave me $200 when he set me free."
After his release Nasir immediately caught
a flight for Karachi, but as soon as he landed an
ISI team picked him up. "This time the
interrogation was very cruel and brutal. For
several days I was denied sleep and not allowed to
go to the loo. For three days I had flu, but I was
not given any medicine. I was also interrogated by
FBI officials.
"After 10 days of grilling,
a Pakistani official came to see me and put a few
questions to me, which included that I knew an
Arab with the name of Khalid, whose address was
written in my note book. I failed to recall
anything and I requested the officer to bring my
note book. This was given to me and I found the
name Khalid with an email address,
khalid98@yahoo.com, in my handwriting. I accepted
that I wrote the name, but I failed to recall when
and where and who Khalid was.
"When
the officer left my cell I tried to recall when and
I wrote the name Khalid in my notebook, and the
next day I remembered - when I was in the custody
of US immigration I spent a few hours with a
person named Khalid, and exchanged email addresses
with him. I immediately asked the guards to call
the officer so that I could explain everything,
but he did not come. Then I persuaded the man in
charge of the cells to call the officer. The
officer then came and listened and then went out
silently."
Nasir said that after several
days the officer came back and informed him that
he would be set free in a few days. He suggested
that Nasir stay in Karachi and try to make a
career in the city.
"Again, I lost control
of my tears and asked what have they got in
keeping me for so long. The officer then asked,
'Who was the fool who asked you to go to the US
Embassy in Malaysia? They asked us to grill you
as a suspect.'"
Nasir was set free with a
few clothes, a little money and no destination.
Roaming the streets of Karachi, often he slept on
footpaths and was picked on by the policemen.
Eventually, he was given a place by a tailor in
Malir in his tiny shop, but soon the father of the
tailor asked him to leave. Then a driver of a
public bus allowed him to eat at his expense in
the hotel where he now hangs out, and pass the
nights in his bus.
Nasir took out
a copy of the San Francisco Journal in which
he is featured and pointed to the last
paragraphs in the article, which gives an elaborate
account of how his family had been destroyed by
the ordeal and how his son Adnan had been
distracted in his studies back in Corning.
Visibly fighting back his tears, Nasir
showed a picture of his son and daughter in his
empty house. "There is only one wish, to be the
father of my children again and patronize them,
otherwise there is darkness on all sides and
suicide is the only option left in this life."
Syed Saleem Shahzadis Bureau
Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be
reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
Asian Sex Gazette South Asian Sex News
|
|
|
