WASHINGTON, March 16: A former Pakistani businessman is petitioning a federal appeals court over his detention at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying the mastermind of the Sept 11 plot and two other Al Qaeda members in US custody can exonerate him of terrorist activity.

Saifullah Paracha, arrested in July 2003 at the airport in Bangkok, Thailand, said he met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1999 and interviewed the Al Qaeda leader in 2000 for his news agency, one of seven businesses Paracha said he owns.

Paracha says the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit should order the questioning of alleged Al Qaeda members Majid Khan and Ammar Al-Baluchi as well as the man who oversaw the terror attacks of Sept 11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

At a trial of Paracha’s son late last year, written statements introduced from Khan and Al-Baluchi exonerate Saifullah Paracha of any knowledge of terrorist activities, Paracha’s lawyer said in court papers filed March 8.

Paracha’s lawyer also wants the court to order the questioning of Mohammed, who “was intimately involved in the contacts Khan and al-Baluchi had” with Saifullah Paracha, the court papers added.

Paracha’s son, Uzair, 25, who says he was pressured into a false confession, was convicted in New York in November of trying to help Khan slip past US immigration officials using fake travel documents to carry out a chemical attack.

The judge in the case against Uzair Paracha did allow jurors to see summaries of Khan’s and Al-Baluchi’s statements to investigators.—APP