BATMAN
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Pakistan will deport American citizens after investigation
Conflicting reports are emerging about the possible deportation of five US citizens arrested in Pakistan on December 9th over alleged terrorist links .
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told media late night in Islamabad his country will not deport suspects until security agencies verify that they had not violated local laws.
But Punjab province Home Minister Rana Sanaullah told journalists in Lahore, the provincial capital where these individuals were arrested that the next step for these men is to be deported to their home country, America.
Rehman Malik told a news conference that his government will first determine, which laws they have violated. Once our law enforcement agencies or courts clear (the detained men), only then will we deport them.
Rehma Malik insisted that his countrys laws will have priority.
But reports from Lahore suggest Pakistan will accept U.S. requests to deport Americans arrested this week on suspicion of seeking training as jihadist guerrillas.
Five of the men, age 19 to 25, are friends from the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., Pakistani officials say. The sixth, Khalid Farooq, is the father of one of them, Umer Farooq, 25, according to police in Sargodha, the city in Punjab where they were arrested Dec. 9.
Punjab province Home Minister Rana Sanaullah said FBI team is already in Sargodha and is taking part in the investigation. The Americans want to get access to the men quickly and to get them deported quickly, he said. But we still have some points to investigate.
Pakistani authorities said two of the men were Pakistani-Americans, while the others were Egyptian, Ethiopian and Eritrean, with US citizenship.
The FBI in a statement confirmed US citizenship for four of the five who disappeared from the Washington area.
Pakistan is in the grip of a fierce insurgency by Islamist extremists, with more than 2,680 people killed in attacks since July 2007.
Conflicting reports are emerging about the possible deportation of five US citizens arrested in Pakistan on December 9th over alleged terrorist links .
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told media late night in Islamabad his country will not deport suspects until security agencies verify that they had not violated local laws.
But Punjab province Home Minister Rana Sanaullah told journalists in Lahore, the provincial capital where these individuals were arrested that the next step for these men is to be deported to their home country, America.
Rehman Malik told a news conference that his government will first determine, which laws they have violated. Once our law enforcement agencies or courts clear (the detained men), only then will we deport them.
Rehma Malik insisted that his countrys laws will have priority.
But reports from Lahore suggest Pakistan will accept U.S. requests to deport Americans arrested this week on suspicion of seeking training as jihadist guerrillas.
Five of the men, age 19 to 25, are friends from the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., Pakistani officials say. The sixth, Khalid Farooq, is the father of one of them, Umer Farooq, 25, according to police in Sargodha, the city in Punjab where they were arrested Dec. 9.
Punjab province Home Minister Rana Sanaullah said FBI team is already in Sargodha and is taking part in the investigation. The Americans want to get access to the men quickly and to get them deported quickly, he said. But we still have some points to investigate.
Pakistani authorities said two of the men were Pakistani-Americans, while the others were Egyptian, Ethiopian and Eritrean, with US citizenship.
The FBI in a statement confirmed US citizenship for four of the five who disappeared from the Washington area.
Pakistan is in the grip of a fierce insurgency by Islamist extremists, with more than 2,680 people killed in attacks since July 2007.