Pakistan mum on SA men

2004-08-04 12:41

Bryan Porter & AFP

Johannesburg - Local authorities have still not been given access to South African citizens being detained in Pakistan on suspicion of having links to al-Qaeda.

Previous reports quoted an unnamed Pakistani official as saying that two detainees had told interrogators that they "had hatched a plot to carry out terrorist attacks on Johannesburg's main tourist sites." South African officials have yet to confirm this.

According to foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Momoepa, "Last week minister Pahad spoke to the Pakistani High Commissioner, and our diplomatic mission in Islamabad raised the issue with the Pakistani foreign ministry, and as of today (Wednesday) we've still not had access."

Asked why Pakistan had not yet allowed South African officials to speak to the men, Momoepa simply replied, "Ask Pakistan."

After numerous calls to the Pakistan High Commission, by midday on Wednesday, no-one was available for comment.

Dr Firoz Abubakar Ganjee, a Johannesburg doctor, and Zubair Ismael, 20, a student from Laudium, Tshwane, were captured last Sunday in Gujrat, in eastern Pakistan.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian al-Qaeda operator, and one of the US's 22 most-wanted terrorists, was with them when captured.

"It is critical that we secure access to these people," Mamoepa tolf AFP. "We have made the point loud and clear to the Pakistanis that we require this action."

The arrest of the South Africans led to newspaper reports of an alleged bombing campaign of the Johannesburg stock exchange, the parliament in Cape Town and the US embassy in Pretoria among other targets.

But Tummi Golding, spokeswoman for South African crime intelligence, said the reports were "incorrect" and the government was expected to refute them following its cabinet meeting later in the day.

The Pakistani high commissioner was due to meet in Pretoria with the families of the two detainees who are also asking that they be allowed to meet with the men.

The families have been quoted in South African newspaper reports as denying that the young men were involved in terrorism.

A group defending the rights of South Africa's one-million-strong Muslim community separately suggested that the two men may have been tortured into making the claims.

Iqbal Jassat of the Pretoria-based Media Review Network charged that Pakistani intelligence working with the United States could be making the claims of a terror plot in South Africa to show that President Thabo Mbeki's government is not dealing with the threat of terrorism. "The Americans would seek to broaden its alliance and force South Africa to join the global war on terror," he said.

Security experts were at a loss to explain why South Africa would be a target of Islamic extremism given its support to the Palestinian cause in the Middle East and its staunch opposition to the war in Iraq.

"Strategically speaking, an attack on South Africa would not make sense," said terrorism expert Anneli Botha from the Institute for Security Studies in the Afrikans newspaper Beeld.

- News24