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by wintler2 » Wed May 11, 2011 8:57 am
by JackRiddler » Wed May 11, 2011 11:44 pm
by seemslikeadream » Thu May 12, 2011 7:24 am
by seemslikeadream » Thu May 12, 2011 11:05 am
Court rules Pakistan's president can't lead party
(AP) – 2 hours ago
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A top Pakistani court has ruled that President Asif Ali Zardari must relinquish his position as chief of the country's ruling party.
The Lahore High Court ruled on Thursday on a petition filed by a lawyer who had argued that Pakistan's constitution prohibits the president to also head a political party.
A spokeswoman for Zardari says she had not seen the ruling and declined comment.
It's unclear what impact the ruling will have, but it will likely to put Zardari on the defensive. His Pakistan's People's Party is seen as very unpopular and has struggled to keep its ruling coalition intact.
Zardari could ignore the ruling or appeal it, which could stretch out the proceedings for many more months.
His five-year term ends in 2013.
by seemslikeadream » Sat May 14, 2011 1:17 pm
Three U.S. Citizens Among Six Charged With Supporting Taliban in Pakistan
By Richard Rubin and Dan Hart -
A U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, four family members and another man were charged by federal prosecutors with providing “material support” to the Pakistani Taliban.
Three of those indicted, including two South Florida imams, have been arrested, according to a statement released by the U.S. Department of Justice. Three others are at large in Pakistan. All are charged with conspiring to support a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap persons overseas as well as supporting the Pakistani Taliban.
Named in the indictment are Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, of Miami; two of his sons, Irfan Khan, 37, of Miami, and Izhar Khan, 24, of North Lauderdale, Florida, also U.S. citizens; and Ali Rehman, Alam Zeb, and Amina Khan. All are originally from Pakistan, the Justice Department said.
Hafiz and Izhar Khan were arrested today in South Florida while Irfan Khan was picked up in Los Angeles, according to the statement. Amina Khan is Hafiz Khan’s daughter and Zeb is her son, the government said.
South Florida Imams
Hafiz and Izhar Khan are imams at mosques in southern Florida, the Justice Department said. They are scheduled to appear in federal court in Miami on May 16. Irfan Khan is expected to make his initial court appearance in Los Angeles.
“Despite being an imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace,” U.S. Attorney Wilfredo A. Ferrer said in the statement. “Instead, as today’s charges show, he acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming.”
The FBI began the investigation based on a review of financial transactions, according to the Justice Department.
The Pakistani Taliban has been involved in several attacks on U.S. targets in South Asia. The group claimed responsibility for bombings on May 13 that killed 80 people at a paramilitary police academy in northwestern Pakistan. It said an attack on the U.S. is next, as part of its attempts to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden.
by seemslikeadream » Tue May 24, 2011 8:27 am
Leaked cable says Pakistanis sabotaged own air missions
U.S. urged to provide ‘continuous’ drones
By Ashish Kumar Sen
Pakistani airmen sabotaged their fighter jets to prevent them from participating in operations against militants along the border with Afghanistan, according to a leaked U.S. Embassy cable.
Another cable reveals that Pakistan's army chief asked U.S. military officials for “continuous” coverage by Predator drones along that border despite criticism of the strikes by Pakistani officials in public.
The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks has provided a batch of U.S. diplomatic cables to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper and India’s New Delhi Television and the Hindu newspaper.
A March 2006 cable cites the Pakistani deputy chief of air staff for operations, Air Vice Marshal Khalid Chaudhry, as telling a visiting U.S. delegation that he was receiving monthly reports of acts of “petty sabotage” of jets by airmen.
Vice Marshal Chaudhry interpreted these acts as an effort by “Islamists amongst the enlisted ranks to prevent [Pakistani air force] aircraft from being deployed in support of security operations in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas along the Afghan border,” the cable says.
The U.S. delegation was led by John Hillen, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs.
Another cable, sent in February 2008, revealed that Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, sought “continuous Predator coverage of the conflict area” in an area along the Afghanistan border where the Pakistani army was fighting militants.
In a meeting on Jan. 22, 2008, Gen. Kayani asked Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, who was chief of U.S. Central Command, for drone presence over South Waziristan.
“Fallon regretted that he did not have the assets to support this request, but offered Joint Tactical Aircraft Controller (JTAC) support for Pakistani aircraft. Kayani demurred, saying that having U.S. JTACs on the ground would not be politically acceptable,” according to the cable.
Vice Marshal Chaudhry, speaking “off the record,” told Mr. Hillen that Pakistani aircraft are called regularly to provide air support to military and security forces when they get into tight spots in the tribal areas near the Afghanistan border, “dryly adding that army brass and the ground forces commanders would deny it,” the cable said.
In a rare public statement this year, Gen. Kayani condemned a March 17 U.S. drone strike that Pakistan said killed up to 40 people in North Waziristan.
Most Pakistanis oppose drone strikes, which they see as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty.
U.S. and Pakistani officials have not publicly acknowledged the covert program.
However, a Pakistani official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter, told The Washington Times that these operations have been carried out after robust intelligence sharing between Pakistan and the U.S.
The Predator drones are operated from bases inside Pakistan the Shamsi air base and Jacobabad.
U.S. officials and analysts say elements within Pakistan’s armed forces and intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, are reluctant to sever ties with militants operating in Afghanistan and India.
“Pakistani military operations against insurgent groups have always been primarily focused on threats to Pakistani security,” said Jeffrey Dressler, a research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Christopher A. Coons, Delaware Democrat, raised questions about Pakistan’s commitment to acting against terrorists.
“I’m deeply disturbed by what seems to be a state that plays a double game, that accepts significant multibillion-dollar aid from us, combat groups that target its own domestic concerns, but then clearly hedges against the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is an uneven partner at best,” he said.
Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden early May 2 in Abbottabad, a garrison town about 30 miles from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The al Qaeda leader’s hide-out was barely a mile from the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul.
In his meetings with the U.S. officials, Vice Marshal Chaudhry said Pakistan’s military leadership has a tough time maintaining positive attitudes toward the U.S. among enlisted personnel.
The cable says he cited the susceptibility of the enlisted ranks - most of whom come from rural areas - to the influence of Islamist clerics. “You can’t imagine what a hard time we have trying to get to trim their beards,” Vice Marshal Chaudhry is quoted as saying in a cable.
Conservative Muslims grow full beards as a sign of piety.
While in Pakistan, Mr. Hillen heard criticism of President George W. Bush’s decision not to give Pakistan a civil nuclear deal similar to the one he struck with India.
A Pakistani official expressed dismay at Mr. Bush’s reference to rogue nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, as the reason why the U.S. would not offer this deal to Islamabad.
Nazir Hussain, who at the time was chief of protocol at Pakistan’s foreign ministry, told Mr. Hillen: “Your man cut Musharraf off at the knees” with that public comment, according to the cable. Gen. Pervez Musharraf was the Pakistani president.
Pakistan was negotiating the sale of F-16 fighter jets with the U.S. at the time, and Vice Marshal Chaudhry asked Mr. Hillen to ensure that the deal “has enough sweeteners to appeal to the public - a complete squadron of new F-16s, with JDAM and night-vision capability - but not to offer the PAF things that it cannot afford,” according to the cable.
Discussing the Chinese JF-17 Thunder jet, a key component of Pakistan’s fighter fleet, Vice Marshal Chaudhry acknowledged that the jet was not comparable to the U.S. F-16 in terms of quality, particularly its avionics and weapons systems.
On a trip to Beijing last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani secured a deal in which China will provide Pakistan with 50 more JF-17s.
Pakistani Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said Pakistan was seeking delivery of the jets within six months.
by seemslikeadream » Wed May 25, 2011 3:56 pm
Pakistan Playing the China Card
By Dilip Hiro and Tom Engelhardt, May 25, 2011
In the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, outrage against Pakistan has become commonplace in Washington, as exasperation grows, pressure builds, and the threats multiply. Members of Congress from both parties have urged major cuts in the third largest U.S. aid program, which has gone mainly to the Pakistani military. (Republican Congressman Ted Poe caught the mood of the moment: "Pakistan has a lot of explaining to do… Unless the State Department can certify to Congress that Pakistan was not harboring America’s number one enemy, Pakistan should not receive one more cent of American aid.”) Meanwhile, members of the White House have reportedly called for "strong reprisals" if the Pakistanis aren’t more cooperative on information-sharing in the war on terror, and Senator John Kerry traveled to Islamabad to demand from that country’s leaders "a real demonstration of commitment" in fighting terrorism at a "make it or break it moment."
About that leadership, high American officials have lately minced few words. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was typical. At a press conference, he answered a question about whether the Pakistani senior leadership shouldn’t "pay a price" for someone there knowing about bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout in the following way: "If I were in Pakistani shoes, I would say I’ve already paid a price. I’ve been humiliated. I’ve been shown that the Americans can come in here and do this with impunity." Impunity? It’s not a word secretaries of defense usually wield when it comes to allies and was clearly meant to register in Islamabad – and to humiliate.
Here’s what’s curious though: as Dilip Hiro, TomDispatch regular and author most recently of After Empire: The Birth of A Multipolar World, points out, the Pakistanis control American supply lines to Afghanistan and so the fate of the war there, a simple fact seldom highlighted in the U.S. And here is a simple reality to go with that: The U.S., which has contributed $20 billion in aid to Pakistan since 2001, certainly could cut back or cut off future infusions of financial support. It could also launch those "strong reprisals," but only if it first made a basic decision – to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan and end its war there. Otherwise it remains in an uncomfortable marriage with Pakistan till, as they say, death do us part, a coupling in which, as Hiro indicates, Pakistan for all its internal weaknesses has a potentially stronger position than most Americans might imagine. ~ Tom
Has the Obama Administration Miscalculated in Pakistan?
By Dilip Hiro
Washington often acts as if Pakistan were its client state, with no other possible patron but the United States. It assumes that Pakistani leaders, having made all the usual declarations about upholding the "sacred sovereignty" of their country, will end up yielding to periodic American demands, including those for a free hand in staging drone attacks in its tribal lands bordering Afghanistan. This is a flawed assessment of Washington’s long, tortuous relationship with Islamabad.
A recurring feature of the Obama administration’s foreign policy has been its failure to properly measure the strengths (as well as weaknesses) of its challengers, major or minor, as well as its friends, steadfast or fickle. To earlier examples of this phenomenon, one may now add Pakistan.
That country has an active partnership with another major power, potentially a viable substitute for the U.S. should relations with the Obama administration continue to deteriorate. The Islamabad-Washington relationship has swung from close alliance in the Afghan anti-Soviet jihad years of the 1980s to unmistakable alienation in the early 1990s, when Pakistan was on the U.S. watch list as a state supporting international terrorism. Relations between Islamabad and Beijing, on the other hand, have been consistently cordial for almost three decades. Pakistan’s Chinese alliance, noted fitfully by the U.S., is one of its most potent weapons in any future showdown with the Obama administration.
Another factor, also poorly assessed, affects an ongoing war. While, in the 1980s, Pakistan acted as the crucial conduit for U.S. aid and weapons to jihadists in Afghanistan, today it could be an obstacle to the delivery of supplies to America’s military in Afghanistan. It potentially wields a powerful instrument when it comes to the efficiency with which the U.S. and its NATO allies fight the Taliban. It controls the supply lines to the combat forces in that landlocked country.
Taken together, these two factors make Pakistan a far more formidable and independent force than U.S. policymakers concede publicly or even privately.
The Supply Line as Jugular
Angered at the potential duplicity of Pakistan in having provided a haven to Osama bin Laden for years, the Obama administration seems to be losing sight of the strength of the cards Islamabad holds in its hand.
To supply the 100,000 American troops now in Afghanistan, as well as 50,000 troops from other NATO nations and more than 100,000 employees of private contractors, the Pentagon must have unfettered access to that country through its neighbors. Among the six countries adjoining Afghanistan, only three have seaports, with those of China far too distant to be of practical use. Of the remaining two, Iran – Washington’s number one enemy in the region – is out. That places Pakistan in a unique position.
Currently about three-quarters of the supplies for the 400-plus U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan – from gigantic Bagram Air Base to tiny patrol outposts – go overland via Pakistan or through its air space. These shipments include almost all the lethal cargo and most of the fuel needed by U.S.-led NATO forces. On their arrival at Karachi, the only major Pakistani seaport, these supplies are transferred to trucks, which travel a long route to crossing points on the Afghan border. Of these, two are key: Torkham and Chaman.
Torkham, approached through the famed Khyber Pass, leads directly to Kabul, the Afghan capital, and Bagram Air Base, the largest U.S. military facility in the country. Approached through the Bolan Pass in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, Chaman provides a direct route to Kandahar Air Base, the largest U.S. military camp in southern Afghanistan.
Operated by some 4,000 Pakistani drivers and their helpers, nearly 300 trucks and oil tankers pass through Torkham and another 200 through Chaman daily. Increasing attacks on these convoys by Taliban-allied militants in Pakistan starting in 2007 led the Pentagon into a desperate search for alternative supply routes.
With the help of NATO member Latvia, as well as Russia, and Uzbekistan, Pentagon planners succeeded in setting up the Northern Distribution Network (NDN). It is a 3,220-mile railroad link between the Latvian port of Riga and the Uzbek border city of Termez. It is, in turn, connected by a bridge over the Oxus River to the Afghan town of Hairatan. The Uzbek government, however, allows only non-lethal goods to cross its territory. In addition, the Termez-Hairatan route can handle no more than 130 tons of cargo a day. The expense of shipping goods over such a long distance puts a crimp in the Pentagon’s $120 billion annual budget for the Afghan War, and couldn’t possibly replace the Pakistani supply routes.
There is also the Manas Transit Center leased by the U.S. from the government of Kyrgyzstan in December 2001. Due to its proximity to Bagram Air Base, its main functions are transiting coalition forces in and out of Afghanistan, and storing jet fuel for mid-air refueling of U.S. and NATO planes in Afghanistan.
The indispensability of Pakistan’s land routes to the Pentagon has given its government significant leverage in countering excessive diplomatic pressure from or continued violations of its sovereignty by Washington. Last September, for instance, after a NATO helicopter gunship crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan in hot pursuit of insurgents and killed three paramilitaries of the Pakistani Frontier Corps in the tribal agency of Kurram, Islamabad responded quickly.
It closed the Khyber Pass route to NATO trucks and oil tankers, which stranded many vehicles en route, giving Pakistani militants an opportunity to torch them. And they did. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a written apology to his Pakistani counterpart General Ashhaq Parvez Kayani, conveying his "most sincere condolences for the regrettable loss of your soldiers killed and wounded on 30 September." Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, issued an apology for the "terrible accident," explaining that the helicopter crew had mistaken the Pakistani paratroopers for insurgents. Yet Pakistan waited eight days before reopening the Torkham border post.
Pakistan’s Other Cards: Oil, Terrorism, and China
In this region of rugged terrain, mountain passes play a crucial geopolitical role. When China and Pakistan began negotiating the demarcation of their frontier after the 1962 Sino-Indian War (itself rooted in a border dispute), Beijing insisted on having the Khunjerab Pass in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Islamabad obliged. As a result, the 2,000-square-mile territory it ceded to China as part of the Sino-Pakistan Border and Trade Agreement in March 1963 included that mountain pass.
That agreement, in turn, led to the building of the 800-mile-long Karkoram Highway linking Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Region and the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, now a household name in America. That road sealed a strategic partnership between Beijing and Islamabad that has strong geopolitical, military, and economic components.
Both countries share the common aim of frustrating India’s aspiration to become the regional superpower of South Asia. In addition, the Chinese government views Pakistan as a crucial ally in its efforts to acquire energy security in the coming decades.
Given Pakistan’s hostility toward India since its establishment in 1947, Beijing made an effort to strengthen that country militarily and economically following its 1962 war with India. After Delhi exploded a "nuclear device" in 1974, China actively aided Islamabad’s nuclear-weapons program. In March 1984, its nuclear testing site at Lop Nor became the venue for a successful explosion of a nuclear bomb assembled by Pakistan. Later, it passed on crucial missile technology to Islamabad.
During this period, China emerged as the main supplier of military hardware to Pakistan. Today, nearly four-fifths of Pakistan’s main battle tanks, three-fifths of its warplanes, and three-quarters of its patrol boats and missile crafts are Chinese-made. Given its limited resources, Islamabad cannot afford to buy expensive American or Western arms and has therefore opted for cheaper, less advanced Chinese weapons in greater numbers. Moreover, Pakistan and China have an ongoing co-production project involving the manufacture of JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, similar to America’s versatile F-16.
As a consequence, over the past decades a pro-China lobby has emerged in the Pakistani officer corps. It was therefore not surprising when, in the wake of the American raid in Abbottabad, Pakistani military officials let it be known that they might allow the Chinese to examine the rotor of the stealth version of the damaged Black Hawk helicopter left behind by the U.S. Navy SEALS. That threat, though reportedly not carried out, was a clear signal to the U.S.: if it persisted in violating Pakistan’s sovereignty and applying too much pressure, the Pakistanis might choose to align even more closely with Washington’s rival in Asia, the People’s Republic of China. To underline the point, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani traveled to Beijing two weeks after the Abbottabad air raid.
Gilani’s three-day visit involved the signing of several Sino-Pakistani agreements on trade, finance, science, and technology. The highpoint was his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Following that summit, an official spokesperson announced Beijing’s decision to urge Chinese enterprises to strengthen their economic ties with Pakistan by expanding investments there.
Among numerous Sino-Pakistani projects in the pipeline is the building of a railroad between Havelian in Pakistan and Kashgar in China, a plan approved by the two governments in July 2010. This is expected to be the first phase of a far more ambitious undertaking to connect Kashgar with the Pakistani port of Gwadar.
A small fishing village on the Arabian Sea coastline of Baluchistan, Gwadar was transformed into a modern seaport in 2008 by the China Harbor Engineering Company Group, a subsidiary of the China Communications Construction Company Group, a giant state-owned corporation. The port is only 330 miles from the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which flows much of China’s supplies of Middle Eastern oil. In the wake of the Gilani visit, China has reportedly agreed to take over future operation of the port.
More than a decade ago, China’s leaders decided to reduce the proportion of its oil imports transported by tanker because of the vulnerability of the shipping lanes from the Persian Gulf and East Africa to its ports. These pass through the narrow Malacca Strait, which is guarded by the U.S. Navy. In addition, the 3,500-mile-long journey – to be undertaken by 60% of China’s petroleum imports – is expensive. By having a significant part of its imported oil shipped to Gwadar and then via rail to Kashgar, China would reduce its shipping costs while securing most of its petroleum imports.
At home, the Chinese government remains wary of the Islamist terrorism practiced by Muslim Uighurs agitating for an independent East Turkestan in Xinjiang. Some of them have links to al-Qaeda. Islamabad has long been aware of this. In October 2003, the Pakistani military killed Hasan Mahsum, leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and in August 2004, the Pakistani and Chinese armies conducted a joint anti-terrorism exercise in Xinjiang.
Almost seven years later, Beijing coupled its satisfaction over the death of Osama bin Laden with praise for Islamabad for pursuing what it termed a "vigorous" policy in combatting terrorism. In stark contrast to the recent blast of criticism from Washington about Pakistan’s role in the war on terrorism, coupled with congressional threats to drastically reduce American aid, China laid out a red carpet for Gilani on his visit.
Referring to the "economic losses" Pakistan had suffered in its ongoing counter-terrorism campaigns, the Chinese government called upon the international community to support the Pakistani regime in its attempts to "restore national stability and development in its economy."
The Chinese response to bin Laden’s killing and its immediate aftermath in Pakistan should be a reminder to the Obama administration: in its dealings with Pakistan in pursuit of its Afghan goals, it has a weaker hand than it imagines. Someday, Pakistan may block those supply lines and play the China card to Washington’s dismay.
by Hammer of Los » Thu May 26, 2011 8:45 am
by JackRiddler » Thu May 26, 2011 10:01 am
Hammer of Los wrote:I've been saying for years that the US "defense establishment" want to take over Pakistan in order to shut down/neutralise the nuclear arsenal.
Pakistan blah blah this that the other. Propaganda all over the place. Pakistan as the source of Islamic terrorism, supported and protected by the Pakistani state security services. Isn't that what they said about Afghanistan, and the Taliban? The US intelligence agencies of course, never protect and support Islamic terrorists. Not ever. Got that?
Musharraf got out while the getting was good.
Perhaps there will be more trouble in Pakistan, before there is less.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... s-pakistan
US cuts troop numbers in Pakistan
Pakistan asks US to reduce military footprint in a sign of its annoyance over how raid that killed Bin Laden was carried out
James Meikle and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 May 2011 10.26 BST
Former Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf said that neither he nor senior officials had colluded in providing refuge for Osama bin Laden. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images
The US is reducing its military force in Pakistan at the request of Islamabad after US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, the Pentagon has said.
More than 200 American troops are in the country helping to train the army in counter-insurgency, but there are also said to be intelligence and special forces there.
No details have been given on the size of the reduction, the type of troops involved, nor whether Pakistan has set a new limit on US numbers.
Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan said: "We were recently (within the past two weeks) notified in writing the government of Pakistan wished for the US to reduce its footprint in Pakistan. Accordingly we have begun those reductions."
The request will be taken as a sign of Islamabad's annoyance that the raid on Bin Laden's compound at Abbottabad was carried out without its knowledge. There have been suspicions in Washington that some in Pakistan knew the al-Qaida leader's hideout.
SNIP
by elfismiles » Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:17 pm
DOJ Secretly Drops Terrorism Charges In Taliban Case
The Department of Justice (DOJ) refuses to explain why it has abruptly dropped terrorism charges against a member of a Middle Eastern family indicted in south Florida last year with providing material support for the Pakistani Taliban.
In all, six people were charged with sending tens of thousands of dollars to the terrorist organization, which is associated with Al-Qaeda and has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against American interests, including a 2009 suicide bombing at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. The ringleader in this case is a Pakistani imam (Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan) who ran a mosque in Miami. The others include his sons, daughter and grandson.
Khan founded an Islamic school that supports the Taliban’s jihad while living in Pakistan and continued controlling and funding it as an imam in Miami, according to a federal indictment. He used the school to provide shelter and support for Taliban soldiers and to train children how to kill Americans in Afghanistan, the indictment says. The rest of the family helped create a network that flowed money from the U.S. to Pakistan to purchase guns for the Taliban, according to the feds.
The story made headlines nationally because the FBI raided the mosque with terrorist ties in a manner that assured cultural sensitivity towards Islam. Federal agents actually waited for prayer service to end before moving in out of respect for Muslims and they took their shoes off prior to entering the mosque as per Islamic tradition. It made for “kindlier, gentler arrests,” under the Obama Administration’s new rules of engagement to assure more sensitivity toward religious practices.
A few days ago the feds secretly dismissed the terrorism charges against the imam’s 39-year-old son, Irfan Khan, in custody for nearly a year and facing up to a decade and a half in jail. Charges against Khan’s dad and younger brother stand and both have pleaded not guilty and remain in custody in south Florida. A local newspaper says the three other defendants are fugitives believed to be in Pakistan. Federal prosecutors did not provide any explanation in a mysterious, one-graph filing dismissing the charges against Khan.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office handling the case in the Southern District of Florida confirmed that the court has granted the request for dismissal, but refused to elaborate. “We are unable to comment on the internal deliberations that led to our decision. However, the charges against his co-defendants remain in place and trial is pending for those defendants in U.S. custody,” the spokeswoman told the local paper in a written statement.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2012/ ... iban-case/
by seemslikeadream » Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:24 pm
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