Khalid Rashid’s apparent rendition just got weirder (see here, here, and here for my previous coverage). According to IOL, the Wits Law Clinic, a well-known human rights group in South Africa, has claimed it has evidence pointing to a “pattern and practice of state discrimination against Arab nationals”. It is believed that they have “details of a series of raids and allegations that information was extracted through torture”, which resulted in “the arrest and subsequent disappearance of a Jordanian alleged to be an al-Qaeda kingpin” after a six-month operation.
An affidavit by Abeda Bhamjee of the Wits Law Clinic outlines a series of detentions and attempted deportations of Arab nationals stretching back to April 2004 when the government initiated several raids against Arab nationals and, according to the affidavit, six people were “wrongfully arrested, detained and deported”.
At the time, SAPS Commissioner Jackie Selebi told parliament that an attempt to disrupt elections had been thwarted by the police and the suspects deported but no evidence to support this claim of a plot was ever presented.
She says the law clinic obtained evidence pointing to a project code-named Genesis that was being run by the government and involved the SANDF, SAPS, Home Affairs as well as “other agencies”.
She asserts that the project entailed the violation of rights of Arab nationals – including illegal searches, unlawful detentions and several other “transgressions of due process”.
This is just the latest in the ongoing saga of Khalid Rashid, a Pakistani foreign-national who has disappeared from South Africa in what his family’s lawyer, Zehir Omar, describes as a case of rendition, while the government claims he was an illegal immigrant and was deported. The SA government has constantly insisted that his deportation was neither a rendition, nor illegal, with government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe saying that they had “exercised our constitutional and legal responsibility to deport from our country an illegal foreigner in accordance with prescribed procedures.”
If Mr Omar wanted to assist Mr Rashid’s family to establish his whereabouts, government wishes to emphasise that he should do so in Pakistan and not in our country.
We do not quite understand why he is not using the legal processes in that country to establish these facts.
It is the responsibility of our government to ensure South Africa is not used as a hideout for any individuals who might be connected with international terrorist organisations.
We are confident that we have done everything in accordance with legal prescriptions and in terms of our responsibility to our own citizens to ensure nothing happens in our country that would endanger our society.
Javed Jalil Kattak, first secretary at the Pakistan High Commission in Pretoria has said in a statement that the Pakistan government does have Rashid in their custody. According to the SABC, “Khalid was wanted in Pakistan for terrorism.” These statements are in addition to a letter from Pakistan officials – now believed to have been backdated – produced by the SA Government confirming the arrest of and arrival of Rashid in Pakistan. Omar claims that the author of the letter â??refuses to be interviewed by an advocate on our behalf in Pakistan.â?
Attempting to go on the offensive, the SA Government claimed that Mr. Omar had been behaving in “in an unethical manner” in his “continuing campaign to besmirch the name of our government and our country regarding Rashid’s deportation from our country”. They also went so far as to request the Pretoria High Court that he be jailed for contempt. This was subsequently rejected, and Omar moved to have the courts declare the deportation illegal immediately. According to the SABC, the fact that the SA government did not receive a letter from Pakistani authorities confirming that Rashid would not face the death penalty for any crimes could mean that his deportation broke constitutional rules.
This is in line with a 2001 Constitutional Court ruling that says South Africa may not deport or extradite individuals to countries that have the death penalty, unless this guarantee is obtained. Omar says he’s now preparing an urgent high court application to have Rashid returned to South Africa for due processes of law.
The courts have since ruled that the motion was not urgent, “since Rashid was no longer in the custody of the government and not in South Africa”. (SAPA)
Omar continues to state that he believes “British agents are interrogating his client in Russia or a former Soviet state.” (M&G) However, experts quoted by the M&G claim that it is more likely he would be held by Americans or the Pakistan government due to UK legal restrictions whereby renditions may not be disguised as an extradition. The SABC reports that Cage Prisoners, a UK based human-rights group, believe Rashid is in Guantanamo Bay listed as a “ghost prisoner” i.e. “he has not been declared by the US.” Finally, The Star lists more than ten questions that the SA Police Service and Home Affairs Department have “refused to answer”.
All in all, the government still continues to evade and obstruct any inquiry into a case which seems to now be a smaller part of a much bigger picture.