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| March 3, 2003 | Monday | Zul Hijjah 29, 1423 |
Family claims suspect not involved in terrorism
ISLAMABAD, March 2: The sister of a Pakistani arrested in a swoop that authorities say also netted the suspected mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks, said on Sunday he was the only man present at the time of the raid and had no ties to any extremist group.
Authorities on Saturday arrested three Al Qaeda suspects in Rawalpindi.
Those held included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, and 41-year-old Pakistani Ahmed Qudoos, they said. An intelligence source said the third man was an Egyptian national, but gave no details.
However, members of Qudoos’s family said he was the only person arrested in a raid by 20 to 25 security men armed with Kalashnikov rifles on their house in Westridge at 3.30am on Saturday.
“My brother was the only man in the house when the raid took place,” his sister Qudsia Khanum told Reuters. “He was taken away while his wife and kids were herded into a room and locked in. They didn’t even know when they took him... or where.
“My brother has never been involved in any bad thing,” she said. “Actually, he’s a bit slow, he’s not very clever, so I can’t even begin to imagine that he could be involved with any terrorist organization.
“He does not have any links with any terrorist organization. They’re saying such strange things about him in the press. He’s been living in the neighbourhood for 15 years and everyone knows him to be a placid person.”
Ms Qudsia said her mother was a district Nazim of Jamaat-i-Islami, and her father a retired microbiologist who used to work for the United Nations and had lived abroad.
He was in Lahore for a wedding at the time of the raid, she said. “He’s a heart patient so we had to break the news gently to him,” she said.
COMPUTER SEIZED: Mr Ahmed’s cousin Omar Khan, a medical doctor, told Reuters the security men took away a computer when they searched the house.
Officials said on Sunday that Mohammed had been handed over to US custody soon after his arrest.—Reuters
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