http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1726132,00.html
August 08, 2005
Deported al-Qaeda suspect is facing extradition to America
By Sean O'Neill and Richard Ford
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A BRITISH al-Qaeda suspect was arrested when he arrived back in Britain
yesterday after being deported from Zambia.
Haroon Rashid Aswat, 30, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, who was picked up on
the Zambian border last month, is wanted for questioning by British and
American anti-terrorist investigators.
A chartered executive jet landed at RAF Northolt, West London, after a
ten-hour flight and was met by an armoured police van. Scotland Yard said
that Mr Aswat was arrested by officers at RAF Northolt after a US request
for his extradition was received.
It is understood that Mr Aswat was taken to Paddington Green high-security
police station, where terrorist suspects are questioned in a basement
holding centre. He is likely to be interviewed about allegations of links
with the July 7 London bombers.
Reports have suggested that Mr Aswat had been in telephone contact with some
of the four terrorists who killed 52 passengers and themselves on the London
Underground and a double-deck bus.
The Crown Prosecution Service said last night: "We are now involved
representing the United States Government, who are seeking Mr Aswat's
extradition. A provisional arrest warrant has been executed." He will appear
at Bow Street Magistrates' Court today.
Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, the key figure in the bomb team, also came from
Dewsbury. But Scotland Yard sources have played down Mr Aswat's significance
to the London bombings inquiry.
Instead the British authorities seem content to let the United States seek
his extradition to face charges over an attempt to set up a jihad training
camp on a remote Oregon ranch in 1999.
FBI documents obtained by The Times show that Mr Aswat and an accomplice
were sent to the United States by a London-based cleric to examine the
possibility of establishing a terrorist camp at Bly.
Mr Aswat flew to New York on November 26, 1999, on an Air India flight. He
was taken to Bly by James Ujaama, an American Muslim convert who has since
been convicted of assisting the Taleban and is a "co-operating witness" in
several anti-terrorist inquiries.
The papers indicate that Mr Aswat spent three months in America and engaged
in firearms and poisons training but decided not to use the ranch.
Mr Aswat had been the subject of a number of international intelligence
alerts since the London attacks.
Pakistan initially reported that it had detained him, but that arrest was
dismissed as a case of mistaken identity.
He was eventually detained in the Zambian town of Livingstone after crossing
into the country from Zimbabwe.
British and American intelligence officials are understood to have
interviewed Mr Aswat in Lusaka. He has also been seen by British consular
officials. Britain is believed to have insisted on his deportation to the UK
before US demands could be considered.
The Government did not want a repeat of the situation that arose in 2002
when Martin Mubanga, a British Muslim, was arrested in Zambia and taken by
the US military to Guantanamo Bay.
Mr Aswat's parents, who came to Britain from India, live in Batley, West
Yorkshire, and say they have not seen their son for ten years. He is
believed to have left home and gone to the Finsbury Park Mosque, North
London, where he became a follower of the militant form of Islam preached
there. He also travelled to Afghanistan, meeting Osama bin Laden.
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