Chilean prosecutors were yesterday required to show a judge what evidence they have against a Pakistani national detained after the US Embassy said it found traces of an explosives substance on his documents and cellphone.
The evidentiary hearing was moved up from today after a magistrate held a closed session on Friday during which the public defender for Mohammed Saif ur Rehman Khan accused the government of violating his legal rights by interrogating him without a lawyer in a language he didn’t fully understand.
Speaking with journalists after the hearing, public defender Gabriel Carrion said he also told the magistrate that nothing he had seen supported a terrorism case against Khan and argued that tests for the chemical allegedly found on Khan’s possessions are notorious for false positive readings.
“This could affect anybody who lives in a city as contaminated as ours,” said Carrion, who is seeking Khan’s release for lack of evidence.
Police said they found more traces of the material — described as tetryl, a chemical used to boost the power of explosives — on clothes seized from Khan’s apartment, Chile’s state television reported.
Investigators also were looking for five more people known to Khan for questioning, the report said. The government on Friday asked a judge to charge Khan with illicit terrorist association as well as explosives violations.
Prosecutor Xavier Armendariz would not comment on complaints about rights violations, but did say that Khan’s continued detention under Chile’s anti-terrorism laws was merited because “the circumstances are without a doubt extraordinary.”
The US government is cooperating fully with the Chilean investigation of Khan.
“There were solid grounds for apprehending him,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
Khan, 28, who arrived in Chile to study Spanish and work in the hotel industry in January, was summoned to the US Embassy on Monday to be told that his US visa had been revoked, diplomats have said.
A Web site apparently set up by Khan’s brother, a doctoral student at Michigan State University, calls him an intelligent, educated man who has never been accused of any wrongdoing. It links to a brief video by Pakistani news channel Samaa in which Khan declares his innocence and suggests he is being framed.
“I think there is someone behind me who is doing this,” Khan said, speaking in English.
The Pakistani Embassy is providing legal and consular support for Khan, and speaking out in his defense.
“He would have to be a very bad terrorist to enter the embassy with traces of explosive material,” Ambassador Burhanul Islam said.
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