-Caveat Lector-

http://news.findlaw.com/news/s/20020916/attackpakistansuspectdc.html

Monday, Sept. 16, 2002

US Takes Al Qaeda Suspects from Pakistan-Officials

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States took custody of key al Qaeda
suspect Ramzi Binalshibh in Pakistan and flew him and four other suspects to
a secret location outside that country, U.S. and Pakistani officials said on
Monday.

The U.S. officials told Reuters that Binalshibh, captured last week in
Karachi and accused of playing a key role in planning the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks on America, was not taken to the United States.

"We have control of him. We're talking to him," said one U.S. official, who
asked not to be identified.

"We have handed over a total of five suspects to the U.S. authorities,
including Ramzi. They have been handed over to the United States and they
must have been flown out of Pakistan," Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, the
spokesman for Pakistan's military government, told Reuters.

The U.S. officials said Binalshibh and the other suspects arrested after a
shootout last Wednesday -- the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks -- were
flown out of the country. They would not say where, but said Binalshibh was
not in U.S. military custody.

President Bush said Binalshibh's arrest shows Americans had not grown weary
of the war on terrorism but in fact are as determined as ever.

"He's the one that thought he was going to be the 20th bomber," Bush said in
Davenport, Iowa. "He thought he could hide. He thought he could still
threaten America. But he forgot the greatest nation on the face of the Earth
is after them, one person at a time."

"MESSAGE TO OTHER TERRORISTS"

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the capture of
Binalshibh would advance the war on terrorism.

"Oh, it does," Rumsfeld said at a briefing. "Let there be no doubt it sends
a message to other terrorists.

"The more of these people that are rolled up and put in jail and
interrogated, the more difficult it is to recruit, the more difficult it is
to retain people, the more difficult it is to raise money, the more
difficult it is to transfer money, the more difficult it is for those folks
to move between countries, the more careful they have to be in everything
they do."

Rumsfeld said it was up to Bush to decide whether Binalshibh would face a
U.S. military commission, and that to his knowledge, the president had not
yet addressed this.

Binalshibh, a Yemeni national, is said to have been a prominent member of an
al Qaeda cell based in Hamburg, Germany.

He is accused of playing an important role in planning the attacks on the
United States along with another member of that cell, Mohamed Atta, the
suspected ringleader of the 19 hijackers who crashed jetliners into the
World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

The German government had issued an international arrest warrant for
Binalshibh, but said on Sunday it was prepared to stand aside in favor of
Washington.

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.

Binalshibh was captured in the sprawling port city of Karachi after a
three-hour shootout.

Like Zubaydah, Binalshibh was spirited out of the country in secret.
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.


Copyright © Reuters 2002.
All rights reserved.

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