The advocate for Pakistani national Khalid Mahmood Rashid said this week he plans to subpoena all those involved in Rashid’s alleged deportation after a court-imposed deadline for providing information on his whereabouts expires on Monday.
On May 16 the Pretoria High Court gave Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula 10 working days to furnish the flight number of the plane on which Rashid was deported, the location where the plane landed and the authorities who received him in Pakistan.
Khalid’s lawyer, Zehir Omar, charged that the minister will be unable to produce the information by the deadline because Rashid was sent away on a chartered plane with no flight number and was not sent to Pakistan, but to another undisclosed location.
Issuing subpoenas to those involved and their superiors in Rashid’s alleged deportation will be his next step, Omar said. ”How else are we supposed to find out where he is?” he asked.
Cleo Mosana, spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs, declined to comment on the court order. ”Home affairs did not act unlawfully here,” she said. ”Yes, we deported an illegal foreigner and yes we got confirmation [of his whereabouts] from the Pakistani government.”
Mosana also declined to comment on a file discovered by Pretoria fast food vendor Yaseen Suliman last week that contains correspondence within the Department of Home Affairs and between the South African and Pakistani governments regarding Rashid.
Judge Justice Poswa ordered that the file, which is in possession by the Mail & Guardian, should not be published.
Omar said he speaks with Rashid’s family frequently and they have not heard from him since before his deportation. South African authorities arrested Rashid in October and the Department of Home Affairs has said that he was deported to Pakistan the following month for residing in the country illegally.
In recent weeks, however, media reports have suggested that he may have been part of an ”extraordinary rendition” in which he was illegally turned over to foreign, possibly British, authorities on a chartered plane at Waterkloof Airforce Base. British and American authorities have been accused of extraordinary renditions in which foreign nationals with possible terrorist ties are turned over to British or American authorities as part of the ”war on terror” and taken to secret camps around the world.
British MP George Galloway, who formed the Respect Party after being fired from the Labour Party over his opposition to the war in Iraq, posed questions about the Rashid case in the British Parliament.
Explaining his suspicions, that the Pakistani had been handed over to British intelligence, to the The Sunday Independent last week, he pointed out that it was highly unusual for an illegal immigrant to be flown out of a country from an airforce base in the middle of the night.
He also found it suspicious that his repeated questions to the British authorities had been met with a ”blank wall”.
Omar said that if Rashid was turned over to British authorities, it would constitute a violation of the Rome Statute, which prohibits the enforced disappearance of persons under international law.
Russ Dixon, spokesperson for the British High Commission in Pretoria, said the matter involves the South African authorities and declined to comment further.
Rashid is not wanted by American authorities, said Mark Schlachter, spokesperson for the American Embassy in Pretoria.
If Rashid was turned over to foreign authorities, it could mean a violation of South African law governing extradition, said Jody Kollapen, commissioner of the South African Human Rights Commission. If South African authorities wish to turn over criminals to foreign authorities, approval must be granted by a South African magistrate in advance.
”Applying that to the current case, there are lots of areas of concern because it’s not clear whether it was an extradition or deportation,” Kollapen said.