Khalid+fiasco+undermines+the+rule+of+law,+plus+Wits+Law+Clinic,+Sindy

Sunday Independent, Johannesburg, June 18, 2006 //Edition 1//
=Khalid fiasco undermines the rule of law=


 * Editorial**

If ever there was an abject lesson to the South African government to guard the nation's precious commitment to human rights, it was the suicides last week of three prisoners at Guantanamo, that benighted American prison camp on the tip of Cuba.

Guantanamo is "home" to hundreds of suspects in the "war on terror", men who may or may not be responsible for heinous crimes, but are held without charge and with few rights. Just like Khalid Rashid, the Pakistani national who was "deported" from South Africa in a privately chartered jet in what looked more like an extraordinary rendition, or an illegal extradition under the guise of deportation.

Despite the ducking and diving of the South African authorities and the recent statement by Pakistan that Khalid is indeed being held in his home country, this affair reeks of backroom, faceless security figures acting in common purpose with their overseas counterparts in contravention of South African law. And the rule of law is something for which this nation fought so dearly.

If Khalid was wanted in Pakistan on terrorism charges, then he should have been subject to extradition proceedings, and not whisked out of the country in secret until court proceedings shed some light on his fate.

For a nation that has buried its detention-without-trial and people-without-rights past with a much lauded constitution, bill of rights and human rights philosophy, South Africa must not be party to or associated with renditions, and the subsequent peril of people being handed over to secret torture camps, Guantanamo or its like. Such camps and places of terror have been specifically set up to evade or hide from the rule of law in the countries where they are based, and are an blight on the conscience of the western community.

We hold no torch for those involved in acts of terror. But we hold dear the right of those in our country to be protected by its laws, and subject to provisions of extradition where applicable. Smuggling a man out of the country at the behest of a military dictatorship is not the way of the new South Africa, as much as it was the way of the old South Africa.

As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, we celebrate a South Africa that stands against the abuse of human rights, and a nation founded on the principal of equality in the eyes of the law.

In whatever squalid cell Khalid is incarcerated, he knows we have played a part in denying him his day in court. He is guilty until proven otherwise - should he ever be charged with anything - but we are guilty of letting ourselves down.

This affair must be a lesson to our government, one that should not have had to be re-learnt.


 * From: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3297693**

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=Wits Law Clinic in bid to testify in Khalid case=


 * //WLC alleges 'pattern of unlawful acts' by the state against Muslims, including torture and kidnapping//**


 * Chiara Carter**

The Wits Law Clinic (WLC) has stepped into the controversy raging around Rashid Khalid, the missing Pakistani national, with the claim that it can tell the court about what it says is "a pattern of unlawful behaviour" by state officials - including harassment, torture, illegal arrests and the enforced "return" to their home countries of Arab nationals suspected of having Islamist sympathies.

The WLC wants to be declared a friend of the court (amicus curiae) when the Pretoria high court considers an application to have Khalid's arrest, detention and deportation last year declared illegal.

In papers prepared for the court, the WLC says it has been involved in a series of cases that point to "a pattern and practice of state discrimination against Arab nationals". Among information the WLC possesses are details of a series of raids and allegations that information was extracted through torture, leading to the arrest and subsequent disappearance of a Jordanian alleged to be an al-Qaeda kingpin. Authorities hunted him for more than six months before he was arrested, and he then seemingly disappeared, the WLC says.

The clinic has lengthy experience in immigration matters, including not only representing refugees but also training officials at the department of home affairs. Central to its request is its involvement in a series of cases in which, it says, the South African authorities practised a policy of unlawful "refoulement" - a term that means the enforced return of foreign nationals. An affidavit by the WLC's Abeda Bhamjee outlines a series of detentions and attempted deportations of Arab nationals stretching back to April 2004, when the government initiated several raids against Arab nationals. The affidavit claims that six people were subsequently "wrongfully arrested, detained and deported".

At the time, Jackie Selebi, the national police commissioner, told parliament that an attempt to disrupt scheduled elections had been thwarted by police and that the suspects had been deported - but no evidence to support the claim of a plot was ever presented.

Bhamjee's affidavit says that at the time the WLC was acting on behalf of a detainee, Mohammed Hendi, and it successfully challenged his detention. It says the WLC also interviewed another detainee, Shahid Hassim.

Bhamjee says the WLC obtained evidence that implicated a project codenamed Genesis, which was being run by the government and involved the South African National Defence Force, the South African Police Service, the home affairs department and "other agencies". She says the project entailed violating the rights of Arab nationals with illegal searches, unlawful detentions and several other "transgressions of due process".

The WLC, meanwhile, acted on behalf of Ahmed Mohamed Baddar, an Arab national who, the affidavit says, was harassed by immigration officials and agents from the National Intelligence Agency and SAPS intelligence division. It says that from March 2003 government officials interrogated, harassed and tailed Baddar and his family. In April 2004 Baddar was "unlawfully detained for 25 days and was psychologically tortured". The WLC, Legal Resources Centre and law clinic of the University of Cape Town intervened and secured his release.

Among documents attached to the affidavit is a submission that says several other Arab nationals and asylum-seekers have alleged that the state kidnapped and tortured them in pursuit of a Jordanian national known as Suleiman Damra. It says these incidents ceased when the state traced and arrested Damra through information gleaned by torture. Since then Damra's whereabouts have been unknown.

At the time, senior intelligence sources said Damra was alleged to be an al-Qaeda kingpin and was sought by British authorities. Subsequently, intelligence sources claimed that Damra was returned to Jordan, where he was imprisoned. Earlier this year, however, home affairs said Damra was thought to be still in South Africa.

The WLC submission alleges that people have been discriminated against and not afforded administrative justice. The WLC says [such people] were "arrested and kidnapped", and when they had requested access to the courts, it had been refused. The submission says their "subsequent deportation, and that they have not been heard from since, might indicate continued violations of their rights by other states initiated by South Africa's actions".

The WLC also possesses correspondence relating to the treatment of Jordanian Ahmed Mahmoud al-Arene, who was arrested in a police swoop last July. The WLC has documented claims that officials tried to manipulate him into agreeing to voluntary deportation by making false promises to him.

The WLC's request is opposed by the state, while Khalid's attorney, Zehir Omar, says it can be accepted only if it does not delay court proceedings.

The Pretoria high court has said it will first decide if Omar's application on Khalid's deportation is urgent, before it considers the WLC bid.

Omar alleges Khalid was targeted for political reasons at the behest of foreign intelligence agents. He fears Khalid is a victim of "rendition" and is being held in a CIA prison abroad.

Omar, who wants the international court to hear the case, this weekend threatened to turn for relief to the constitutional court, which has previously ruled that the government cannot extradite anybody to a country where the death penalty might be imposed, without an undertaking that it will not be imposed. Meanwhile, the Pretoria high court has postponed indefinitely a request by the home affairs department that Omar be arrested and imprisoned for contempt of court.


 * From: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3297747**

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