NEW YORK, Aug 6: Uzair Paracha, held in American custody for the last four months, will likely be charged with conspiring to provide material support to Al Qaeda, his attorney told reporters on Tuesday.

Mr Paracha, 23, was arrested in here in March, about six weeks after he arrived in the US to raise money for a real estate venture in Pakistan, his lawyer, Anthony Ricco, said.

Mr Ricco said he expected an indictment alleging that Mr Paracha was going to help a terrorist organization by conspiring to bring someone into the United States.

The arrest was first reported on Monday on the NBC Nightly News. Mr Ricco said that Mr Paracha arrived legally in New York this year to help promote his father’s real estate venture.

The lawyer told the New York Times that Mr Paracha, who recently obtained a master’s degree in business in Pakistan, denied any wrongdoing or participating knowingly in any such conspiracy and intended to fight any charges, he said.

The US authorities have said nothing publicly about Mr Paracha’s detention, or the possibility of charges being filed against him here. Nor have they revealed what they might be investigating about a chemical weapons conspiracy involving him.

The US attorney’s office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation refused to comment here, saying that all proceedings involving Mr Paracha, as in other material witness cases, had been kept under strict court secrecy.

However, according to the Times the US government officials suggested that they considered Mr Paracha a potential source of information about more important figures in the terrorism investigation, including his father, Saifullah Paracha, who runs a company that exports clothing to the US.

A law enforcement official told the paper: “It’s a serious matter. The prime suspect is the father.”

The official suggested that the father had been taken into custody in Pakistan, and that he had been moved possibly to Afghanistan for questioning.

“We’re trying to put pressure on the son to get to the father,” the official said. Of the father’s import-export business, the official added, “the issue is the nature of the business.”

Another senior government official in Washington cautioned that no decision about charging the son had been finalized, and that any role by the son in supporting terrorism was still being investigated. Mr Ricco said he believed that information provided to the authorities by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a senior aide to Osama bin Laden, led to the arrest of his client.

Mr Ricco described the father, who he said was taken into custody about a month ago, “as a well-known political activist in Pakistan who has travelled to Afghanistan and to my knowledge has even met Osama bin Laden,” the paper said.