NEW YORK: Two Pakistani nationals were extradited to the United States from Spain to face criminal charges that they conspired to aid a Colombian group that the US government has designated as a foreign terrorist organisation, District Attorney of New York and the FBI have announced.

Pirzada Khawaja Abdul Hameed Chishti and Pirzada Khawaja Abdul Wahab Chishti had been arrested in Spain in June 2014, along with co-defendants Sohail Kaskar and Ali Danish.

In a press release, US District Attorney Preet Bahara alleged that Hameed Chishti, 47, and Wahab Chishti, 49, tried to provide material support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, including through the sale of multiple kilograms of heroin and Russian-made surface-to-air missiles to protect its drug trafficking business.

The defendants allegedly agreed to these sales in various meetings in 2013 and 2014 with US Drug Enforcement Administration informants who were posing as members of FARC, the Spanish acronym for the Colombian group.

“Hameed and Wahab Chishti illustrate once again that drug trafficking and terror conspiracies often intersect, support, and facilitate each other’s dangerous and potential deadly plots,” DEA Special Agent in Charge Mark Hamlet said in a statement.

The extradited defendants each face charges of conspiring to commit narco-terrorism, provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, import heroin and sell missile launching systems.

They face up to life in prison, if convicted.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2015

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