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Pakistan Rights Body Slams Deportation of Zaeef
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| Zaeef's deportation to Pakistan is illegal: HRCP |
Additional Reporting By Aamir Latif
LAHORE, Pakistan, Jan. 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said late Monday the government's deportation of former Taliban spokesman and ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, breached international law, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Afrasiab Khattak, chairman of the rights group, said Zaeef was forced to return to Afghanistan despite the Pakistani authorities being "fully aware of the hostile conditions he would have to face there".
Khattak said the government had violated international refugee laws by deporting the former ambassador.
"The treatment meted out to him [Zaeef] is similar to the manner chosen to deal with hundreds of Afghans after September 11, who were pushed back across the border by the administration without permission from courts and without completing any legal procedure," KhattaK said in a statement.
"Specific formailiti,es exist to deal with the matter of the deportation of persons,' he said. "Those formalities must be followed before taking summary decision that endanger the welfare of individuals or result in dangerous precedents set in place."
Meanwhile, Pakistan has so far turned over to U.S. authorities a total of 300 Taliban and Al-Qaeda members, who tried to trickle into Pakistan, following the collapse of Taliban’s government in neighboring Afghanistan, a top Interior Ministry official told IslamOnline Monday, January 07, 2002.
They've been arrested during the last eight weeks by Pakistani security agencies from different border areas of NWFP and Baluchistan provinces, which border with Afghanistan.
The arrested included Ibn-Sheikh Al-Labi, the one in charge of Al-Qaeda’s training camps. Al-Labi, along with other Taliban and Al-Qaeda members, including Zaeef are being interrogated at USS Byne Ship in the Indian Ocean, Pakistani military sources said.
Zaeef, who is believed to have “valuable” information about Taliban’s Supreme Leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was handed over to U.S. forces in Afghanistan at Torkhum border by Pakistani authorities Saturday, January 5, 2002.
According to an interior ministry official, who refused to be named, the majority of the 300 detainees were still on Pakistani soil, but had been handed over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). “They have been put under arrest at a jail in Kohat district of NWFP,” he told IslamOnline.
The detainees would be shifted to Kandahar, the southern Afghan city where U.S. Marines have built a detention facility, the official asserted.
He further claimed that the arrested Taliban and Al-Qaeda members were being solely interrogated by the FBI and contrary to past investigations, no Pakistani secret agency was assisting in interrogation.
Most of the arrested belong to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morocco, Syria, Iraq, and Kuwait, the official said.
“Pakistani secret agencies had also interrogated the Arab, Afghani and Pakistani members of Al-Qaeda and Taliban, including Mullah Zaeef, before handing them
over to the FBI to get current information about Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden,” the official said. “But none of them could add something to the already available information”.
In reply to a question, he said the former Afghan envoy “categorically” told the FBI and the Pakistani secret agents during initial interrogation in a Safe House in Peshawar that he had no knowledge about Mullah Omar or Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
“Zaeef was warned by the FBI that if he did not point out the hideouts of Mullah Omar, Bin Laden and other Taliban leaders, he would be handed over to Northern Alliance which would deal him at will,” the official said. “But he [Zaeef] denied having any information in this regard”.
Zaeef is the highest-ranking Taliban member to come under U.S. control.
Meanwhile, in an interview with a Saudi paper, Pakistani Interior Minister, Moinuddin Haider, said that Pakistani authorities had arrested 240 Arabs -- most of them belonging to Saudi Arabia -- who were crossing over to Pakistan from Afghanistan.
“We have received a list of top Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders from the United States, and we are matching the names of arrested Arabs with that list”, Haider
was quoted as saying.
Those who matched with the said list would be handed over to the U.S. The remaining persons would be handed over to their respective countries, he added.
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