US fuels Pakistan bounty market
Bounties offered by the US for suspected terrorists have created a black market in abductions in Pakistan, according to a report published today.
People have been seized by Pakistani police, border guards and bounty hunters eager to claim rewards offered for suspected terrorists, evidence compiled by human rights organisation Amnesty International shows.
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Many were handed to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, which in turn passed at least 369 detainees to American operatives, writes Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, in his book In the Line of Fire, also published this week. Amnesty's report says people abducted in Pakistan account for about two-thirds of the 759 past or present inmates at Camp X-Ray, the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The report - Pakistan: Human Rights ignored in the 'war on terror' - found "hundreds of people have been arbitrarily detained".
Incentives for bounty hunters came in leaflets dropped from American aircraft after the invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001 and recovered by locals and reporters. Rewards included $5,000 (�4,000, ￡2,700) for information on al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters and up to $25m for alleged terrorist masterminds such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
The CIA yesterday declined to comment. The State Department did not respond to repeated requests from the FT for a comment. A Pentagon spokesman said: "The rewards programme is effective in helping to protect Americans and citizens around the world from terrorists, including those who harbour or aid the enemy."
Professor Shaun Gregory, a UK expert on Pakistani security at Bradford University's Department of Peace Studies and a visiting fellow at Islamabad's Institute for Strategic Studies, Pakistan's leading military think-tank, said leaflets dropped in Afghanistan spread into Pakistan.
The market in abductees was at its most frenetic in late 2001, Amnesty said. Pakistan's security services continue to deny the existence of such detainees when pressed by relatives of the disappeared. The bounty trade "is the logical working-through of the notion that the CIA will pay for 'bad guys'," Prof Gregory said.
Prisoners in Pakistani jails have allegedly been "groomed" to appear more like potential terrorists before being sold to American personnel, Angelika Pathak, one of the report's authors, told the FT.
Mark Denbaux, professor of law at Seton Hall University law school, New Jersey, and a lawyer representing two Guantánamo detainees, said his client, Rafiq Alhami, a Tunisian Arab resident in Afghanistan, was bundled into a van during a medical visit to Pakistan in late 2001.
Mr Alhami, 40, a honey broker with a heart condition, believes his captors were paid a bounty, Prof Denbaux said. He remains in Camp X-Ray, not charged with any offence.
Gen Musharraf writes that since the September 11 2001 attacks his agents have rounded up hundreds of suspected terrorists: "Some are known to the world, some are not. We have captured 689 and handed over 369 to the United States.
"We have earned bounties totalling millions of dollars. Those who habitually accuse us of 'not doing enough' on the war on terror should simply ask the CIA how much prize money it has paid to the government in Pakistan."
Western diplomats said the allegations would dent the image of martial democrat cultivated by Gen Musharraf, who dined with President George W. Bush and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, on Wednesday. The guests, who blame each other for the Afghan insurgency, refused to shake hands.
Gen Musharraf arrived in London yesterday, and spent the afternoon with Tony Blair, the prime minister. Today he will address the Oxford Union.
美国反恐赏金催生巴基斯坦绑架黑市
今天发表的一篇报告称，美国为捉拿嫌疑恐怖分子提供的赏金，已在巴基斯坦形成了一个绑架黑市。
人权组织――大赦国际(Amnesty International)汇编的证据显示，巴基斯坦的警察、边境卫队和赏金猎取者渴望索取为捉拿可疑恐怖分子设立的赏金，为此他们抓捕了一些平民。
巴基斯坦总统佩尔韦兹?穆沙拉夫(Pervez Musharraf)在他的《火线生涯》(In the Line of Fire)一书中写道，其中许多人被移交到了巴基斯坦的国内情报局(Inter-Services Intelligence)，而国内情报局随后将至少369名被拘留者交给了美国的特工人员。该书已于本周出版。大赦国际的报告称，在美国位于古巴关塔那摩湾的“X射线营”(Camp X-Ray)军事监狱，以往或目前在押的759名囚犯中，在巴基斯坦被抓捕的人占到了约三分之二。
这篇报告名为《巴基斯坦：“反恐战争”中被忽视的人权》(Pakistan: Human Rights ignored in the ‘war on terror’)。报告发现，“数以百计的人被随意拘捕”。
2001年11月美国进攻阿富汗后，美国飞机撒下了传单。这些传单被当地人和记者发现，赏金猎人们的动机即来自于此。奖赏包括，提供基地组织或塔利班武装分子的信息，奖励5000美元，而为捉拿哈立德?谢赫?穆罕默德(Khalid Sheik Mohammed)等恐怖分子头目所提供的悬赏奖金，更高达2500万美元。
美国中央情报局拒绝对此置评。美国国务院未对《金融时报》再三提出的评论要求作出回应。五角大楼一位发言人表示：“悬赏计划有效帮助保护美国人和世界各地的公民，使其免受恐怖分子，包括那些窝藏或协助敌人的人带来的威胁。”
