A Story of Extraordinary Rendition from South Africa.

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Tuesday March 14, 2006 21:38 by Karen Murphy - Amnesty International Irish Section

Where is Khalid Rashid ?

Pakistani national, Khalid Mehmood Rashid and his house mate, Indian born Moulana Mohammed Ali Jeebhai, were abducted by heavily armed police and Home Affairs officials on the 31st of October last year and locked up at an unknown place thought to be in Cullinan outside Pretoria, South Africa.

This was only confirmed three months afterwards when their names were found in the cell register of Cullinan police station . The station's incident book revealed that Khalid Rashid was signed in and out of the cells on no less than nine separate occasions during his stay by both police and home affairs officials. After a week Mohammed Jeebhai was taken to the Lindela Repatriation Camp for illegal immigrants in Krugersdorp where he managed to alert his family, who then obtained an urgent High Court order to prevent the men's deportation. But Khalid could not be traced; it's suspected he'd been extradited to a secret American prison camp, like Guantanamo Bay.

The court demanded answers from the Minister of Home Affairs, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who said Khalid had been deported to Pakistan. But neither the flight number, nor the name of the airline or person who received him in Pakistan were supplied. Since then, the Department of Home Affairs has been back in the Pretoria High Court. While they didn't say exactly where Khalid Rashid is, they did admit that he was held at the Cullinan police station. They also provided a copy of this fax from the Pakistani government. It's signed by a Lt. Colonel and simply states that Khalid arrived in Pakistan subsequent to his deportation from South Africa.

Lawyers for Human Rights' Rudolph Jansen says the Department of Home Affairs knows the facts, but are avoiding the truth : 'It's actually sad that the senior people in the department don't readily acknowledge that there were serious violations of rules, laws and protocols. And that they don't take steps to remedy those.' Home Affairs say Khalid admitted to being an illegal immigrant in this handwritten affidavit and that he declared he would not appeal the decision to deport him. Rudolph Jansen said however,: 'I think if they are honest about the situation they will let Khalid Rashid make an affidavit to that effect, not present the little piece of paper which he signed while he was kept in custody. I mean, gosh! - how naïve can you be?'

Khalid's worried family in Pakistan says they have not heard from him since October last year.
Lawyers are now thinking of taking the case to the International Criminal Court - the ICC - in The Hague. But the ICC only has jurisdiction over crimes against humanity and Khalid's case will not qualify, says Professor Hennie Strydom of the University of Johannesburg : 'My best advice to them is to first of all exhaust the domestic remedies in this regard. If things fail at the High Court level, there is always the Constitutional Court to go to. Then, of course, I think there should be some sort of diplomatic pressure put on it, from outside maybe. We see a sort of different kind of legal regime developing dealing with terrorism. You see all kinds of alternative measures being taken. I think if that goes too far it might erode the rule of law in many countries. And that is why we have to be watchful of alarming trends in this regard.'

It has been established the raid was executed without the prior knowledge of the National Intelligence Agency or its minister.

According to Rudolph Jansen : 'These type of illegal operations have certain characteristics and that is one of them. They bypass departments; they bypass their seniors; they act on their own; they act on a need-to-know basis. It is all secretive and illegal. And so I am not surprised. I would be surprised if it was any different. It's also alleged the S.A. government secretly opened a back door to Western agents fighting the War of Terror. It's claimed that two British law enforcement officers took part in the raid in Estcourt that led to Khalid Rashid's controversial arrest and deportation. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Pretoria was only prepared to say that this was a matter for the South African authorities. Police and Home Affairs were not prepared to be interviewed.

Even the Military would not comment on the revelation that Khalid was flown out of Waterkloof Air Force Base on a plane belonging to a foreign intelligence agency.