http://www.canada.com/news/national...90-858B0CC27F53

quote:

The family of Ahmed Said Khadr, a Canadian suspected of links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, launched a legal challenge in Pakistan's Supreme Court yesterday in a campaign backed by a confidant of Osama bin Laden. The lawsuit, against various agencies of the Pakistani government, seeks information about the whereabouts of Mr. Khadr and his 14-year-old son, Abdulkarim Khadr, both of whom were reported to have been involved in a skirmish with Pakistani security forces in early October near the Pakistani-Afghan border. The Khadr family is also demanding the Canadian government provide them with new passports to return to Canada. Ottawa says the family is free to return to Canada on emergency travel documents, but will not issue them full passports because they are on a list of Canadians who have repeatedly declared their passports lost or stolen. At a press conference in Islamabad yesterday, Mr. Khadr's wife and daughter, Canadian citizens who are living in Pakistan, demanded to know what happened to Mr. Khadr and his youngest son. In the weeks following the skirmish in South Waziristan on the border with Afghanistan, there were unconfirmed reports that Mr. Khadr had died and that his son had been injured. But neither the Pakistani security forces nor Canadian government officials have been able to provide any conclusive information about their whereabouts. "They didn't disappear into thin air," said Zaynab Khadr, Mr. Khadr's daughter, who is one of the petitioners in the lawsuit along with her mother, Maha Elsamnah. "It seems the Pakistani army ambushed them," said Ms. Khadr, 24, in a telephone interview from Islamabad yesterday. "It was all over the news here when it [the skirmish] happened, but now we don't know anything more. That's why we have launched this lawsuit." Khalid Khawaja, a former senior intelligence officer for Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency, is also named as a petitioner in the lawsuit. In addition to bin Laden, Mr. Khawaja also counts Sheikh Mubarek Gilani as one of his closest friends. Mr. Gilani's organization was suspected of backing Richard Reid, the shoebomber, who tried to hijack a flight from Paris to Miami two years ago. Both Mr. Gilani and Mr. Khawaja were briefly detained for questioning following the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, who had tried to link Sheikh Gilani to Mr. Reid. Mr. Pearl had been trying to arrange an interview with Sheikh Gilani just before his disappearance in Karachi last year. "In the world of militant Islam, Khalid Khawaja seems to be a friend of just about everyone," said a reporter for CBS who profiled Mr. Khawaja after Mr. Pearl's murder in 2002. Mr. Khawaja, who denies any knowledge of Mr. Pearl's kidnapping and murder, said he is also a friend of the Khadrs. In an interview from his home in Islamabad yesterday he said he is providing financial assistance to the Khadr women, who are living in the Pakistani capital as his "guests." He said his organization, the Muslim Solidarity Movement, is assisting in the lawsuit as a "humanitarian" gesture. "These poor innocent ladies have suffered so much," Mr. Khawaja said. "They have to hide their identities. No one will rent a house to them here. They live in utter terror." Pakistani security forces tried to shut down the press conference yesterday by removing microphones and confiscating press releases. According to a report by Agence France-Presse, a Pakistani government official interrupted the conference to tell journalists the Khadr family is linked to al-Qaeda. "We have secret information that there is a link to al-Qaeda," said Asadullah Faiz, the government official, who also accused the Khadrs' lawyer, Hashmat Habib, of close links to the terrorist organization. In interviews yesterday, both Ms. Khadr and Mr. Habib denied any links to al-Qaeda. "The family has no link with terrorism," said Mr. Habib, adding he has targeted the Pakistani Interior Ministry, the Army and the Information Ministry demanding information on the whereabouts of Ahmed Khadr and his son. "They worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan for nearly 20 years and their organization has been funded by UN agencies." The Khadr family has long maintained they worked as aid workers in Afghanistan when the Taliban was in power. But after the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes, Ahmed Khadr appeared on the U.S.'s most wanted list of suspected terrorists. Mr. Khadr has reportedly been in hiding since the Sept. 11 strikes. Ms. Khadr said she last heard from her father and brother last September, about a month before the raid by Pakistani forces on a suspected al-Qaeda safe house in Angoor Adda in South Waziristan. "We don't know anything that has happened to my father and brother," said Abdulrahman Khadr, who was recently released from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo, Cuba, where he was being held on suspicion of terrorism. Mr. Khadr is living with his grandparents in Toronto. His younger brother, Omar, 17, is still being held at Guantanamo although he has not been formally charged. Both Mr. Habib and Mr. Khawaja said they do not think the Pakistani Supreme Court will respond to their lawsuit during the first scheduled hearing next week. Mr. Khawaja blamed George Bush, the U.S. President, and "the Jewish conspiracy" for fomenting terrorism. "The purpose of this lawsuit is to expose who the real terrorists are," he said. "The Americans have trampled on all our human rights and civil liberties. They have killed Muslims. Under these circumstances, it is not hard to see why Muslim kids turn into suicide bombers."

___________________
aka Tits McGee
aka Chesty LaRue
aka Busty St. Claire