- KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters)
- U.S. officials led the interrogation of key al Qaeda suspect Ramzi Binalshibh
on Sunday, as Pakistan pondered likely extradition requests from the United
States or Germany.
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- Pakistani officials said they were prepared to send Binalshibh
and his associates abroad for trial, but said no decision had yet been
reached on where they should go.
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- "It has been decided to hand over the arrested al
Qaeda militants, but no decision has been taken as to which country they
will be handed over to," an Interior Ministry official said.
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- Binalshibh, wanted in the United States and Germany for
his alleged role in planning the hijacked plane attacks on the United States,
is one of the most important al Qaeda members to be taken into custody
over the past year.
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- Officials say he was a very prominent member of an al
Qaeda cell in the German city of Hamburg and a roommate of Mohamed Atta
-- the suspected ringleader of the September 11 hijackers.
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- U.S. officials have said the Yemeni national, who was
refused a visa into the United States at least four times before September
11, 2001, wanted to join the 19 hijackers involved in the attack on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
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- Both American and German governments have already expressed
interest in taking Binalshibh into custody.
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- "We certainly want custody of him," the U.S.
president's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told Fox News. "We
will work with the Pakistani officials."
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- "We certainly want to be able to find out what he
knows," Rice added.
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- The German prosecutor's spokesman said Sunday her government
had not yet filed an extradition request with Pakistan and was still examining
the situation before deciding on the next move. But Interior Minister Otto
Schily has made it clear they would like to try Binalshibh.
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- "We in Germany have issued an international arrest
warrant that we want to enforce," Schily told ARD Television in Copenhagen
Saturday. "If there are competing interests we must come to an agreement
with other countries."
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- ARRESTED AFTER FIERCE GUNBATTLE
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- Pakistani security forces, acting on a tip-off from U.S.
agents, arrested Binalshibh in the sprawling southern port city of Karachi
on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
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- The arrest followed a three-hour gunbattle involving
hundreds of police that left two al Qaeda suspects dead and at least six
policemen wounded.
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- At least one other raid was conducted in Karachi earlier
in the week. Now, Binalshibh, a second high-level al Qaeda suspect, and
10 others are being held in a secret, high-security location in Pakistan.
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- "They are being interrogated to retrieve maximum
possible information about other al Qaeda suspects in Pakistan," an
army source, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
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- The source said the arrested men were being kept blindfolded
and handcuffed during questioning, with the two leading suspects held separately
from their colleagues.
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- "Most of the time, it's United States FBI officials
who are interrogating them," he added.
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- Saturday, President Bush hailed the capture and vowed
to hunt down other suspects still at large.
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- "Thanks to the efforts of our folks and people in
Pakistan, we captured one of the planners and organizers of the September
11 attack that murdered thousands of people...," Bush told reporters
at Camp David.
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- Pakistani police said U.S. agents had traced Binalshibh
to a three-storey building in an upmarket district of Karachi thanks to
a satellite phone call.
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- Security and intelligence agents met armed resistance
when they raided the building Wednesday and had to call in hundreds of
police to help flush the men out.
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- Pakistan's Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said one
of the dead men might have been Egyptian but said others killed or arrested
were Yemeni.
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- Police said they had recovered a satellite phone, a laptop
and "a few CDs of Osama's speeches" from the apartment.
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- Binalshibh's capture came just days after a journalist
with al-Jazeera Arabic satellite television said he interviewed the Yemeni
in or around Karachi.
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- Binalshibh and another key al Qaeda member reportedly
affirmed that bin Laden was personally involved in planning the September
11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.
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- Yosri Fouda, the al-Jazeera journalist who said he interviewed
Binalshibh, said the Yemeni claimed to be the coordinator of the September
11 attacks.
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