Govt reply on Noor’s detention sought

ISLAMABAD: Justice Sardar Aslam of the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench on Monday ordered authorities to explain the charges against an alleged Al Qaeda computer expert, his defense lawyer said.

Justice Aslam issued notice to police and other officials after hearing a petition from the father of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, who was captured by Pakistani intelligence agents on July 13 during a raid in Lahore.

Later, authorities say a search of his computers uncovered surveillance documents of five financial institutions in the United States, prompting a terror alert in three US cities. Some arrests were also made on Khan’s information in Britain. Khan also led police to a hideout of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian Al Qaeda operative wanted for the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in east Africa, officials said. Ghailani was captured on July 25 after a shootout in Gujrat. Since then, Pakistan has claimed the arrest of more than 70 terror suspects, but none of them, including Khan, has yet been produced before any court.

In his writ petition, Khan’s father, Hidayat Noor Mohammed, has challenged, what he calls the “illegal detention” of his son. On Monday, Hidayat’s counsel, Babar Awan, told The Associated Press the judge had asked authorities to explain within 15 days why they were holding Khan and on what charges. ap

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