July 25, 2003	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1424

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RAWALPINDI, July 24: Seventy-six Pakistani deportees on Thursday arrived at Islamabad from the United States aboard a chartered flight.

Most of them had been arrested under the US Justice Department’s Absconder Initiative that had been launched in Feb 2002 against foreign nationals, who had ignored previous deportation orders by US courts.

This is the fifth charter flight arranged in this regard by the US Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in collaboration with the Pakistan embassy in Washington.

The deportees were accompanied by 23 US law enforcement officers as well as Pakistani embassy’s second secretary Imran Ali. Seventy of the 76 deportees were absconders while others had been involved in petty crimes.

Most of the deportees had on an average spent between four and five months in prisons, the shortest period for prisoners from South Asia arrested on charges of immigration violations.

One of the deportees, sources at the airport said, had been extradited by the US government on the request of the Pakistan government.

The Ministry of Interior had been seeking the extradition of Najamuddin Sahaf from the US for the past two years, the source said.

He was wanted by the National Accountability Bureau in an embezzlement case.

No one from the interior ministry was present to take over the person in question.

Mr Sahaf had reportedly surrendered to the immigration officials at the airport. One of the deportees told this correspondent that Mr Sahaf had told him that he wanted to settle the corruption case.