Pakistan: Two U.S. Citizens ‘Disappeared’: FBI Involved in Case

[struggle4progress]

Pakistan Must Produce Suspects in ‘War on Terror’

(New York, March 9, 2005) -- The Pakistani government must immediately charge or release Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal, U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin who were abducted from their home in Karachi in August and have since been “disappeared,” allegedly by Pakistani intelligence agents, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch called on the U.S. government to clarify its involvement in the case and whether the two are being held at its behest in Pakistan or elsewhere. FBI agents in Chicago have contacted relatives of the brothers, while witnesses allege that Americans were present and in radio contact with the abductors.

Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal were abducted between midnight and 2 a.m. on August 13, 2004, in a raid that involved at least 30 armed Pakistani intelligence agents. The agents broke through the concrete exterior wall and then broke into the house. No attempt was made to enter with consent. Neighbors came out of their homes to see what was happening, but were ordered to go back inside.

The intelligence agents, in plainclothes, held the Azfal family at gunpoint for an hour, threatening to kill them while they searched the house. They specifically demanded to see the U.S. passports and all other U.S. government-issued identity papers held by the brothers. Once the papers were located, they handcuffed and hooded the brothers, and then left with the brothers in their custody in a convoy of jeeps and vans typically used by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and police. Before they left, they locked the ailing mother of the two abductees in a bedroom. <snip>

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/09/pakist10278_txt.htm