26 January 2005	Wednesday	15 Zilhaj 1425

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 25: A top Al Qaeda operative from Tanzania was handed over to US authorities shortly after his arrest in Pakistan last July, a senior intelligence official said on Tuesday.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa that killed more than 200 people, was arrested after a shootout in Gujarat on July 27.

"A week after the arrest, he was handed over to the Americans," a senior intelligence official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Ghailani, who was on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's most wanted list and had a $5 million US bounty on his head.

He was charged by a New York court in December 1998 for his alleged involvement in the August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. -Reuters

NO CONFIRMATION: No senior government official was willing to be quoted on record if Pakistan had handed over Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani to the US authorities shortly after his arrest from Gujrat in July last year, Our Staff Reporter in Islamabad adds.

However, a senior official in an intelligence agency categorically said that Ghailani had not been handed over to the US authorities. When asked if Ghailani was being held in Pakistan, the official said he could not give the location of Ghailani's detention but maintained Pakistan had not handed over the terrorist to the US.

When accessed on Tuesday, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's website still continued to show Ghailani among the list of top wanted terrorists.