Posted on 05/08/2011 2:59:21 PM PDT by milestogo
CHENNAI: A Pakistani businessman alleged by the U.S to have had a direct link with Osama bin Laden, of plotting to acquire chemical and other weapons for al-Qaeda, and offering his media network for al-Qaeda propaganda was among the Guantánamo detainees whose repatriation the Pakistan government actively pushed.
The 64-year-old Saifullah Paracha remains in the Guantánamo Bay prison, possibly its oldest inmate and among the last six Pakistani prisoners not yet considered fit for release and repatriation by U.S. authorities. A U.S Embassy cable from Islamabad, dated August 30, 2006 ( 76668: confidential/noforn) details that a delegation of Pakistani officials who visited Pakistani detainees at Guantánamo returned with the impression that most of the detainees “are individuals who were ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time', not extremists who pose a serious threat.”
Obtained by The Hindu through WikiLeaks as part of the Pakistan cables, the diplomatic communication is a small window into the complicated relations between the U.S and Pakistan in the “war on terror,” and their differences over how to tackle al-Qaeda.
It shows how sections of official Pakistan differed from the U.S. in their assessment of al-Qaeda suspects. It also shows the domestic pressures on the Pakistani government as public resentment soared over the manner in which the U.S. had detained these suspects.
The cable is a report of the Pakistani delegation's Guantánamo visit, as told to the Political Counsellor at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad by Lt. Col. Imran Yaqoob — wrongly mentioned in the cable as Imran Farooq — Director of Operations at the National Crisis Management Cell in the Pakistani Ministry of Interior, who was in the delegation.
The cable said, the Pakistani delegation that visited Guantanamo in early August that year, “left with the impression that no major obstacles remain to the repatriation of six of the Pakistani detainees,” including Paracha, “provided that the GoP [government of Pakistan] makes arrangements to keep him in detention here in Pakistan.”
It’s OK now, he prolly doesn’t know anything more than OBL had on his computer.
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