IHT : Pakistan releases a suspect accused of ties to Al Qaeda

Pakistan releases a suspect accused of ties to Al Qaeda

August 20, 2007

WASHINGTON: A Pakistani man accused of aiding Al Qaeda and imprisoned in his home country for three years, has been released, according to The Associated Press, and American officials made clear their dismay at the news on Monday.

The Americans declined to speak for the record about the release of the man, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, apparently out of reluctance to criticize Pakistan, which has generally worked closely with the United States in counterterrorism efforts.

"He most definitely had terrorist links," an American intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the American case against Khan was classified.

No reason was given for Khan's release, and it was unclear whether the government freed him because it did not believe he had committed a crime.

Khan was arrested in Lahore in July 2004 during a joint Pakistani-British raid. Soon after his arrest, Pakistani and American authorities said they had found files on his computer that led to the raising of the terrorism alert level in the United States.

The authorities said the files included surveillance information on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, the Citigroup Tower and New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan and the Prudential Building in Newark.

Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, said Monday that the department had no comment for now about the Pakistani action.

It appeared unlikely that the United States would try to take unilateral action to take Khan into custody. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has on several occasions arrested terrorism suspects in Pakistan and taken them to secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency.

But those prisons for high-level terrorist suspects have generally been reserved for detainees believed to have intelligence about terrorist plots in the works, not for people like Khan, who has been in custody. Pakistani officials have said that information from Khan led them to a Tanzanian wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of American embassies in East Africa, which killed more than 200 people, The AP reported.

Pakistan's deputy attorney general, Naheeda Mehboob Ilahi, said Monday in court that Khan, believed to be in his late 20s, was released and returned to his home in the southern city of Karachi, according to The AP.

The news agency said that Khan's lawyer, Babar Awan, confirmed that his client had returned to his family but said he had not been able to speak to him. Awan said Khan was never charged or brought before any court.