It seems that an incredible story is brewing in South Africa over the suspected rendition of Khaled Rashid. As the European Parliament releases their investigation into the American CIA’s practice of “rendition” (i.e. kidnapping), Reuters reports that lawyers for Rashid’s family have claimed that, “Beyond a reasonable doubt this was a case of rendition. Here is a man who was kidnapped, sent to a military base and whisked away to who knows where. This is not the kind of thing that happens in a democracy.”

Home Affairs officials said Rashid, who is about 34, departed in an aircraft chartered by police on November 6. The aircraft, registered in the United Arab Emirates, left from Pretoria’s Waterkloof airforce base and the ministry said it had no details on where it eventually landed.

Initially, Eyewitness News reported that the plane was operated by a Dubai-based company, Phoenix Aviation, which “has been linked to “extraordinary renditions” â?? the process whereby people are removed from one country and taken to another for questioning, often by the US.” They have “refused to give details about the suspicious flight.” SABC reported that Phoenix Aviation is actually “based in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia”, operating from “Sharjah International Airport in the United Arab Emirates”.

In Amnesty’s report on the US government’s practice of rendition, Beneath the Radar, Phoenix Aviation was one of “a list of companies likely to have had some level of involvement in renditions and other covert operations”, and was ” linked to rendition flights in press and parliamentary reports”. IOL reported that “Phoenix Aviation is owned by alleged international gun-runner and convicted drug smuggler Christopher Barratt-Jolley, and Victor Baath, a Russian national.”

The disclosures came after the South African Department of Home Affairs succumbed to repeated requests to disclose what they knew of Rashid’s case. Previously, Zahir Omar, one of the family lawyers, was quoted by AFP on News24.com as saying that “he had obtained an intelligence report to the home affairs minister stating that British authorities suspected Khalid of having links to an international terrorist network.”

“I suspect he is being detained in an American detention centre in a former Soviet country. I will subpoena all to locate Rashid and reveal the involvement of South African officials in the American war on terror. … The reason for Rashid’s abduction was the mere suspicion he was linked to international terrorism” … adding that while he had some ties to the Taliban … he was “not a major player.”

But initially, Home Affairs claimed that Rashid had been deported because he was an illegal immigrant. AFP quoted Cleopatra Mosana, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Home Affairs, as saying “We got a tip-off about an illegal person, an illegal foreigner. We did our normal arrest and a normal legal deportation. We put him on a flight back home. We then get confirmation from the Pakistani ministry of the interior to say, ‘yes, he is here,’ and that is where our business as home affairs ends.” In outlining their case for their appeal against one of Omar’s requests, a statement from the SA Department of Home Affairs said that:

The decision to appeal is based on the logistical consequences of having to obtain information regarding the whereabouts of illegal foreigners subsequent to their deportation.

This is extremely difficult in practice, particularly as South Africa deports over 100 000 illegal foreigners each year. It is international practice not to track the movements of illegal foreigners after deportation. The effect of the judgement is to place an obligation on the state to ascertain such information. With respect, we would want a higher court to determine if that is what our law, properly interpreted, requires.

But lawyer Zahir Omar asks “why did it take a pain staking effort; no less than three court orders, to answer the questions” if it was just a straightforward case of deportation? Rudolph Jansen from the Lawyers for Human Rights, according to Carte Blanche, “said the operation had all the characteristics of an illegal action” “They bypassed departments. They bypassed their seniors. They act on their own. They act on a need-to-know basis. It is all secretive and illegal.” Also, at a hearing last week to try force answers from Home Affairs, Omar again said, “They insist he was deported but now they are using every technicality in the book to delay telling his (Khalid’s) parents where he is. I tell you, he was abducted.”

In responding to the most recent allegations, Reuters reports that the South African government said in a statement that “Mr Rashid was an illegal foreigner in South Africa. He was arrested and deported to his country of origin, Pakistan”, and that “Extra care had to be taken with regard to the deportation and special transport arrangements were agreed upon between the Department of Home Affairs and our security agencies”. The “special circumstances” under which he was deported were due to his believed “connections with international terror cells”. The SABC reported that Rashid “could have been flown from South Africa to Mombasa in Kenya in November last year.” Furthermore:

A letter written by a senior official in the Pakistani interior ministry shows Rashid arrived in that country after being transported from South Africa in November last year. The document is signed by Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Imran Yaqub. He says Rashid was in good health, with the exception of a skin disease. His present wherabouts are unknown.

But according to the SABC, “His family claims he never returned home and they fear he might be in an international detention centre.” Furthermore, in an explosive investigation by Carte Blanche carried out in March they revealed an affidavit from Yaseen Suliman, a businessman and law student who had had discovered a missing Home Affairs file during one of Zahir Omar’s court cases. He was threatened not to appear on the programme, but his affidavit reads:

I, the undersigned, Yaseen Suliman, do hereby make an oath and state as followsâ?¦ I feel morally obligated to bring the discrepancies and contradictions from what is in the file, compared to what I heard in the proceedings the previous night, to the attention of the judgeâ?¦ The question arose in my mind as to how could the letter sent from Pakistan be dated before the instruction was sent to Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior?

This is not the first time that South Africa has been involved in a dispute regarding the illegal deportation of a suspected terrorist. The Institute for Security Studies comments that “In the case of Tanzanian national Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, who was sought for the US bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the Constitutional Court found that South Africa had violated his rights”:

Mohamed was sent to the US without an extradition hearing being held. There he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Back then, Mohamed should have been deported to his country of origin, namely Tanzania. An extradition hearing should have been initiated for crimes that he was alleged to have committed in the US. The Mohamed case demonstrated that there was a distinct difference between extradition and deportation; furthermore the Constitutional Court ruled that it was unlawful to use deportation procedures to affect an extradition.

They conclude that “The important and justifiable desire of states to co-operate on the combating of terrorism should not allow them to act unlawfully. South Africa should ensure that it never violates the inalienable rights of persons, even indirectly, to bring alleged terrorists to justice.”