More propaganda coming out of Pakistan about the prison escape of British-Pakistani citizen and Al Qaeda operative Rashid Rauf — the alleged mastermind of the London Planes Plot of August 2006.  

In "Pakistan agents 'staged escape' of terror suspect," The Sunday Times reports that according to Rashid Rauf's "friends," he was kidnapped by Pakistan's military intelligence and likely shot. This "fear" is echoed by Rauf's former cellmate, Khalid Khawaja, whom the Times describes as "a former Pakistan intelligence agent who counts Osama Bin Laden as a friend."  

Rauf was arrested in Pakistan in August last year at the same time as 25 men were held in Britain after police uncovered an alleged plot to blow up 12 airliners flying to the United States from Heathrow and Gatwick.The arrests led to widespread changes in airport security and a ban on liquids being taken onto planes in hand luggage.

Since then Rauf has been held with other Al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan’s highest-security unit in Rawalpindi until his “escape” last weekend.The Pakistan government has blamed junior policemen escorting Rauf back to jail after a court hearing in Islamabad where he was fighting moves to extradite him to Britain in connection with the murder of an uncle.

The officers had allowed him to stop for lunch at a McDonald’s restaurant and later in the journey permitted him to pray at a mosque. His handcuffs were removed to allow him to pray freely. When the guards entered the mosque to check on the prisoner, he had escaped through another door.

Their description of his getaway has been met with disbelief throughout Pakistan, with diplomats and commentators asking how a prisoner described by the country’s interior minister as a leading Al-Qaeda operative and held in Pakistan’s highest-security detention unit could be allowed to walk away in broad daylight. Rauf’s lawyer and a close family friend both said last week that they believed he had not escaped but had been taken into secret security-service custody and they feared for his life.

They said they believed the country’s intelligence service did not want him to be extradited to Britain and had in effect kidnapped him to preempt any court decision to deport him. More than 400 opposition activists and Islamic militants have been secretly detained by the security services in this way and Pakistan’s Supreme Court has criticised the policy and ordered the government to free a number of detainees.Khalid Khawaja, a former Pakistan intelligence agent who counts Osama Bin Laden as a friend, said he had shared a cell with Rauf and had become close to him and his family. He said Rauf was a simple man who did not have the wherewithal to plot an escape. He said he believed that Rauf might have been “taken away by the ISI” and feared that his friend might be shot dead while “on the run”.

“He was a high-value prisoner wanted by the British. How could he just get a chance to run away like this? It is not possible without the active involvement of the government. Now they have said he ran away. If he’s found killed no one will question it because he ran away,” he said. 

(Photo credit: Farooq Naeem/Agence France-Presse)

Share This Article