The Next Hurrah: How Was Rashid Rauf Arrested?

August 16, 2006

How Was Rashid Rauf Arrested?

by emptywheel

Atrios links to Andrew Sullivan being skeptical who links to Craig Murray being even more skeptical. And Murray raised a point that I had raised earlier. Here's Murray:

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth.

Now I'm frankly not as skeptical as Murray; Meteor Blades has made a pretty convincing case, after all, that we need to be skeptical in all directions (and I believe Meteor Blades unquestioningly). But I do want to raise a question I've already asked.

Here's me reading the MSNBC scoop about the US launching the arrests before the Brits were ready:

Americans pushed the Brits to do two things they didn't want to do. First, they pushed the Brits to arrest Rashid Rauf before they wanted to.
The British official said the Americans also argued over the timing of the arrest of suspected ringleader Rashid Rauf in Pakistan, warning that if he was not taken into custody immediately, the U.S. would "render" him or pressure the Pakistani government to arrest him.

British security was concerned that Rauf be taken into custody "in circumstances where there was due process," according to the official, so that he could be tried in British courts. Ultimately, this official says, Rauf was arrested over the objections of the British.
This passage is actually quite interesting. The US wanted Rauf arrested. The Brits wanted to wait--they wanted to wait until they could arrest Rauf in such a way that he could be tried in the UK. The US threatened to render him. The Brits tried to hold out, so they could prosecute him legally. And then ... that's where the article is less clear. Was Rauf arrested using due process? Will Rauf be a defendant and witness in the UK? Or did the US snatch him, making him useless for a legal prosecution and possibly endangering the larger case in the UK?

So to put Murray and MSNBC together, the US wanted Rauf arrested right away. The Brits wanted to wait so they could use due process. The US threatened to "render" Rauf. The Brits complained.

And then he got arrested.

But by whom, and in what way? As I suggested before, the MSNBC article just drops the whole question, making it clear that the US won that battle, somehow. But it doesn't explain--was he rendered? Did the US force Pakistan to arrest him? Where is he now? Who has custody?

Like MB taught me, I'm still withholding judgment on this one. But I would be really grateful if some journalists covering this story would clarify how Rauf got arrested. As Murray suggests, it makes the difference between a real terrorist plot and yet another aspirational terrorist plot, created with the help of torture. It's the difference between the US putting Rauf in a spot where he can manufacture a terrorist plot and the Brits getting him on a conviction for murder.

August 16, 2006 at 19:42 in Contributor--emptywheel, Terrorism | Permalink

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August 16, 2006

How Was Rashid Rauf Arrested?

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