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| November 20, 2003 | Thursday | Ramazan 24, 1424 |
Pakistani woman jailed in US
WASHINGTON, Nov 19: A Pakistani woman, who had until recently lived in Upper Darby, was sentenced on Tuesday to 16 months in prison for lying to federal agents who were looking for her former husband, a suspected terrorist.
Humaira Jawed, 27, daughter of a wealthy Pakistani businessman, admittedly misled agents by claiming that her former husband was in Pakistan when she knew he was driving a cab in Philadelphia, a newspaper Daily News of Philadelphia reported on Wednesday.
According to the newspaper, about 50 agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force spent a week hunting for Agha Ali Abbas Qazalbash, in Philadelphia and New York, only to learn that he had flown back to Pakistan two days after his former wife was first questioned.
Assistant US Attorney Nancy Beam told US district judge Bruce W. Kauffman on Tuesday that Ms Humaira’s lies gave Mr Qazalbash “time to successfully flee the country.”
Sentencing guidelines called for Ms Humaira to receive a prison term in the range of 10 to 16 months and the judge gave her the maximum punishment.
Mr Qazalbash, who had allegedly served as a vice-president of an outlawed Pakistani religious sect before entering this country, had overstayed his visa and was deemed to be in this country illegally when the agents went looking for him in July, the report added.—ppi
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