Mr. Nawaz Sharif Handed Over Mir Aimal Kansi to the US of A!

LAHORE: PML-N Chief Mian Nawaz Sharif Saturday said that he reconciled with President Asif Ali Zardari to change the fate of the country but latter ruined the reconciliation in just one month. Talking to the party workers from Sheikhupura, Kasur and Nankana Sahib, PML-N Chief said ' I am very concerned about the present situation in the country.' He said that his party cooperated with the federal govt to alleviate load shedding, poverty and inflation but President Zardari spoiled all efforts. Nawaz said that his party proposed 10-point agenda to resolve national issues but govt disappointed the whole nation. On issue of Davis case, PML-N Chief said that his party would continue support a principle stance in this regard. REFERENCE: PML-N backs principle stance over Davis: Nawaz Updated at 1631 PST Saturday, February 19, 2011 http://www.thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=11397 

Saturday, February 19, 2011, Rabi-ul-Awwal 15, 1432 A.H 
http://jang.com.pk/jang/feb2011-daily/19-02-2011/u63133.htm

ISLAMABAD, June 22: The prime minister's adviser for information and culture, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, said that the Kansi affair was a sensitive one and cautioned against exploiting it for political motives. In a briefing on the arrest of Aimal Kansi, he told reporters that Pakistan's priorities were very clear. "We will not give protection to any person said to be engaged in terrorism since this can be only hurting the interests of Pakistan." The PM's adviser described Aimal Kansi's case as that of a fugitive wanted for a criminal act in a "friendly country". Mushahid made it clear that Kansi was wanted for the killing of two employees of the CIA in Washington in Jan 1993. Since then, he said, he was on the run as a fugitive from justice and he was said to have taken refuge in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. He said during the last four years, several raids were conducted to arrest Kansi but he had managed to escape. "Given this context, Pakistan had no responsibility either for his actions in the United States or for providing him any sort of protection against the law," he said. Mushahid Hussain said there was no question of Kansi being some sort of a hero. "He is simply a fugitive from justice, wanted for a crime that he is alleged to have committed in the United States." REFERENCE: Action taken to protect national interests Staff Correspondent Week Ending : 28 June 1997 Issue : 03/26 DAWN WIRE SERVICE http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1997/28Jun97.html

LAHORE: Nearly 14 years after the then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had “pleased” the Clinton administration by allowing the extradition of Mir Aimal Kansi, one of FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives of that time, a much tougher test awaits his younger sibling Shahbaz Sharif who finds pressure mounting on him from Washington DC for the release of the recently arrested US official/diplomat Raymond Davis. While Premier Nawaz Sharif was calling shots in the country with a two-third majority in the parliament during his second stint in power (1997-99) when Aimal Kansi was arrested from the remote town of Dera Ghazi Khan, his brother Shahbaz Sharif was holding sway in the Punjab province during the same period. Now that Raymond Davis has been arrested for shooting two people dead in Lahore nearly one-and-a-half decade after Aimal Kansi’s arrest, Shahbaz Sharif is once again the Punjab chief minister. Incidentally, the shooting spree had occurred in Nawaz Sharif’s electoral constituency of Mozang, where the PML-N has never lost an election since 1988 at least. REFERENCE: Recalling extradition of Aimal Kansi By Sabir Shah Sunday, January 30, 2011 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=28394&Cat=2

Federal agents paid $3.5 million to informants in Pakistan and Afghanistan to help catch Mir Aimal Kansi, who was arrested in Pakistan four years after shootings outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., left two dead, a report in Newsweek said. Another report, in Time, said President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright personally contacted Pakistani President Farooq Leghari to win approval for the June 15 operation that resulted in Kansi's arrest at a hotel in Pakistan. Kansi is being held without bail in Fairfax County. REFERENCE: Report: $3.5 Million Paid to Informants June 23, 1997|From Times Staff and Wire Reports http://articles.latimes.com/1997-06-23/news/mn-6218_1 

FAIRFAX, Virginia, Nov. 18: The local court which tried and sentenced Mir Aimal Kansi to death released the evidence in his case for the media and a cursory look establishes that the confession signed by Kansi was written by the FBI agents. The evidence, besides the confessional statement, included the AK-47 gun, pistols and ammunition used in the CIA killings, pictures of the crime scene, reports of the specialists and scanning tests done on Kansi and copies of applications made by Kansi to buy firearms and seek asylum in the US. Interestingly, the documents reveal that Kansi's signatures on the confessional statement were totally different from what he normally signed on the asylum application or the forms he filled to buy the gun and two pistols. The statement, signed by Kansi on board the aircraft while on way from Pakistan to the US, was written by an FBI agent, in capital letters on two small lined papers. It was written in pure legal language and said: "I, Aimal Khan Kasi, also known as Mir Aimal Kansi, freely and voluntarily provide this statement to SA Bradley J. Garrett and SA Sean Joyce of the FBI. No threats or promises have been made to me. I can read, write and have a master's degree in English. "Approximately two-three days prior to the shooting outside CIA headquarters in January 1993, I purchased a AK-47 rifle and approx 150 rounds of AK-47 ammo. I also purchased two pistols at this time. On Monday 1-25-93 I drove my Isuzu pick-up truck to the entrance road off of HW123 in Fairfax Co VA. I had with me the purchased AK-47 and several magazines of ammo. I parked my truck in the right lane of 2 left lanes that turn into CIA headquarters. I got out of my vehicle I started shooting into vehicles stopped at a red light. I shot approximately 10 rounds shooting 5 people. I aimed for the chest area of the people shot. I then returned to my truck & drove back to my apartment in Herndon, VA after stopping at a park approx. 1 mile from the shooting. The next day I returned to Pakistan. This statement is accurate and correct. Also several days before the shooting I decided to do the shooting at the CIA or the Israeli Embassy but decided to shoot at the CIA because it was easier because CIA officers are not armed."

X signed Aimal Kasi, 6-17-97

Witness: SA signed Bradley Garrett, FBI, 6-17-97

SA S. M. Joyce, FBI, 6/17/97

The signatures of Kansi on this statement read Aimal Kasi while in all other papers which he signed on his own free will, he has written Mir Aimal. The confession was admitted as evidence in the case, despite objections by the defence but later when the defence could have pointed out the discrepancies, they never mounted any defence for Kansi and concentrated only on the post-guilty phase to try to save him from death penalty, which they ultimately could not. REFERENCE: Kansi's signature on confession statement differs Shaheen Sehbai DAWN WIRE SERVICE eek Ending : 22 November 1997 Issue : 03/47 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1997/22Nov97.html#kans 

ISLAMABAD, July 2: After a prolonged wait, the Senate finally reverberated with strong exposition from the opposition leadership on the debate on adjournment motion how the law of the land and fundamental rights as enshrined in the Constitution were violated in the arrest and extradition from Pakistani soil of Aimal Kansi without fulfilling the due course of law. Chairman Wasim Sajjad allowed the PPP to move adjournment motion on Wednesday on extradition of Aimal Kansi. The motion was moved by all the PPP Senators. The Chairman fixed half an hour for debate on the matter. Moving the motion, Senator Raza Rabbani made a forceful speech on the matter and said that the international conventions and treaties were not followed in toto in extradition of Kansi to the United States. He showed through the help of reported interview of Interior Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain with Pakistani and international media that the government of Pakistan was not aware of the operation employed for the arrest of Kansi. He quoted the statement of interior minister who has stated that Kansi was caught somewhere from Afghanistan and was delivered by some people from there. He said that on the contrary the Taliban held that Kansi was not caught from Afghanistan. He stated that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had repeatedly maintained that the government of Pakistan was not aware of the circumstances of the arrest of Kansi nor was the ministry of interior involved in the arrest of Kansi. Rabbani said that it was clear that the government of Pakistan did not receive any request for extradition of Kansi from Washington. He also referred to the statement issued by the foreign office showing that it was totally unaware of the arrest and extradition of Kansi.

Raza Rabbani concluded from the whole affair involving Kansi that (1) the government of Pakistan was not associated in any way in the kidnapping of Kansi from Shalimar Hotel in DG Khan as reported extensively by international and national media, (2) sensitive government agencies were not asked for the arrest of Aimal Kansi though arrest should have been made by Pakistan's state agencies (3) treaty of extradition if there was any should have been given effect, (4) the accused should have been produced before a magistrate, (5) the accused should have been allowed to move writ before the superior judiciary if he had so desired. Senator Rabbani summed up his party's case by taking up the position that the due process of law was not implemented in the arrest and extradition of Kansi and violating the fundamental rights as enshrined in the Constitution. He held that the government of Pakistan was not aware to the procedure of the arrest of Kansi and other points relating to why and where the violation of Constitution was committed. He posed the question as to who committed aberrations of the Constitution of Pakistan. He wanted the replies to the questions posed by him from the interior minister. The questions posed by Senator Rabbani were (1) From where was Kansi arrested and by whom ? (2) Was a formal request for the arrest made and on what ground was it granted? (3) Who gave permission for the arrest? If he was arrested by the government of Pakistan ? (4) Was the procedure laid down by the process of law followed?

Earlier Senator Rabbani had said that even four days after the arrest of Kansi, no official statement came. He said that on Pakistani soil, the law is to shield any Pakistani under the law. He emphasized that his party stands against all forms of terrorism. Speaking next Opposition Leader Aitzaz Ahsan made it abundantly clear that nobody supported or condoned terrorism. He said that what the opposition was concerned about was the question of the implementation of constitution and law of the land. He said that under the constitution and law every person arrested should be produced before the magistrate within 36 hours of his arrest. He said that the government had not denied reports published in Pakistani and international media that Aimal Kansi had been arrested from Pakistani soil that is Dera Ghazi Khan and all the processes of the law were required to be fulfilled in his arrest and subsequent extradition. He made a reference to Press reports according to which US Secretary of State Albright spoke to the President of Pakistan on the matter. While speaking on the issue, Aitzaz Ahsan narrated the case of the arrest of a well-known drug mafia man and the request of then American Ambassador to him for the arrest of the wanted man. He said that the US Ambassador wanted logistics support and he told the envoy that due process of the law will be followed in the matter. Aitzaz Ahsan said that all the processes of law were followed and the man was handed over to the Americans until his appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected. He said that the Americans understood and appreciated the government's position. Later Senator Qaim Ali Shah also spoke on the issue saying that in the arrest and extradition of Aimal Kansi, the Constitution was violated. REFERENCE: Opposition asks govt. why Kansi was extradited DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 05 July 1997 Issue : 03/27 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1997/05Jul97.html#oppo

Ayub Khan said two decades ago that Pakistan needed friends not masters. This prognosis remains relevant. The bilateral relations between states are a two-way traffic. They lose vitality and durability if relegated to a one-directional association. Mir Aimal Kansi's 007-style arrest from Pakistan and his hush-hush transfer to the US, under mysterious circumstances, has created a strong public reaction in this country. Kansi is no saint. He is accused of committing a heinous crime for which he deserves a fair trial, in a fair court of law, and in a fair country. His dramatic arrest, an official silence on his capture and his prompt transfer to the US custody raises important legal, moral and constitutional issues. It needs to be clarified if the two governments acted in unison or Pakistan yielded under the US pressure. If the benefit of doubt is given to Pakistan, it may be assumed that Islamabad might have acted in good faith and for valid reasons. However, it will be wise on its part to take the people into confidence. No less important is the public anxiety about the protection of the legal rights of Kansi, despite the gravity of his alleged crime. Are the people of Pakistan safe in their own country is the question being debated. Two wrongs do not make one right. A media trial is unjustified. So also is yellow journalism. The publication of unsubstantiated reports on this unpleasant and sensitive incident, in a section of our Press (not Dawn), did not promote our national interest. This has been forcefully denied by the government and the president. While it is fair to criticize Pakistan and the US for their acts of omission and commission, it may not be prudent either to settle old domestic scores by taking advantage of this case or to portray an under-trail criminal as a hero.

It is a mockery of justice, international law and diplomatic norms for the US to claim that some domestic court in that country had held it legal for America's intelligence agencies to arrest foreign nationals from the non-US soil for the crimes allegedly committed by them in America or against American nationals. Such a self-serving judgment has eroded international confidence in the fairness of the US judicial system. Assume some other country, armed with an identical internal judicial decision, arresting an American citizen in this country in a clandestine operation? The thought smells of big-power arrogance. How can the sovereignty of a weaker power be equated with that of the sole superpower on earth? That Pakistan and America have bilateral cooperation on the drug control measures is a healthy development. The drug menace cannot be controlled at the supply end only. The demand end is equally blameworthy for the ongoing drug trade in the world. The market mechanism in a free society is governed by the principles of supply and demand. The West has not done enough to prevent the purchase of smuggled heroin by its own people. 

There is a need to review Pakistan-US relations on drug control measures. Any technical or financial assistance given to Pakistan by the US or other countries do not ipso facto give them a free run in this country. The arrest of Squadron Leader Farooq Ahmed Khan was reportedly engineered by a US agency by keeping Pakistan in the dark. This shows lack of faith. Worse still, Ayaz Baloch, a Pakistani in the US pay, intentionally violated Pakistani law to keep his employers in good humour. Strangely, the US authorities have shown undue concern about his release. Such one-sided acts have created a feeling in this country that the Washington authorities consider their own fishy and dicey acts above the law of this country. This is an unfortunate attitude. Why should such pinpricks be there to spoil bilateral relations? It may well be better to do way with the technical and the financial help provided by the US along with its encumbrances on the drug control-related issues. REFERENCE: The arrogance of power Gen. Khalid Mahmud Arif (retd) DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 26 July 1997 Issue : 03/30 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1997/26Jul97.html#thea

LAHORE, Sept 10: Pakistan Bar Council Human Rights Committee chairman Rana Ijaz Ahmad said officials at the highest posts were involved in helping the US illegally arrest Aimal Kansi. Addressing a Press conference, here on Wednesday, he said the names were revealed to him by Mr Kansi himself when he met him in jail in the US recently. Mr Ahmad, however, said he would divulge the names only after he got an assurance of personal security. A very important person, he said, was murdered in the past due to his differences with people at high posts. He said that the US claimed to be the champion of human rights but had violated all legal norms in the conduct of Aimal Kansi's case. The detenu, he said, was being kept in jail in very poor conditions. He was not allowed to meet reporters and other Pakistanis and he himself had faced difficulty in getting the permission to visit him. He demanded that private counsel be engaged to contest the case. Aimal Kansi was always kept in handcuffs and his sleep was disturbed at night by the jail staff. He was not allowed to see his own case file and it was said nomination of the defence counsel had been a formality. Mr Ahmad said Kansi did not expect justice from the court. He also had little faith in the defence counsel engaged for him at state expense. The PBC member said Mr Kansi was arrested from a Dera Ghazi Khan hotel by five US commandos. They were later joined by 10 personnel from some Pakistani agency. Aimal Kansi, he said, also related the details of the inhuman treatment meted out to him after his arrest. The personnel of some local agency, he said, also met Kansi at the US embassy in Islamabad before he was sent abroad. Mr Ahmad said he would write a letter to the international human rights organization for securing due rights for the Pakistani in illegal US custody. REFERENCE: 'Senior govt officers involved in illegal arrest of Kansi' DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 13 September 1997 Issue : 03/37 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1997/13Sep97.html#seni

DERA GHAZI KHAN, June 19: Who was the person whisked away from a local hotel on Sunday last in a mysterious operation reportedly organized by military commandos? Was he Aimal Kansi or someone else? This was the most asked question in this part of the country after the news of Mir Kansi's arrest spread in the country through the media. It may be recalled that at about 4.15 am on Sunday some 30 armed personnel entered Shalimar Hotel and introduced themselves as military commandos. They took positions and ordered the hotel employees on duty to lie down on the ground. They also severed phone lines of the hotel, and a few of them along with a tall foreigner rushed to room number 312 where one person - namely Saifullah Khan - of Waziristan agency had been staying since Friday evening. After a very short span of time, the commandos and the foreigner came down to the ground floor with a moaning person. The foreigner, who was perhaps a CIA agent and had come to identify Kansi, was wearing Sindhi ajrak and was heard saying 'thank you, thank you' to a man looking like an officer. During the operation a local police party on patrol duty reached the hotel. The policemen were also held up by the commandos, and were ordered to stand still with their faces towards the wall. Accomplishing their operation, the armed men drove towards Dera Ghazi Khan airport in white-coloured Pajero jeeps where reportedly a military helicopter and a four-seater plane were waiting for them. The police party also left the place without inquiring about the matter from the hotel management. At about 5am, the copter and the plane took off to some unknown destination, it was learnt. The information gathered by this correspondent revealed that the commandos who took part in the "kidnapping" operation reached here in a separate helicopter which reportedly landed at the PAEC helipad.

The helicopter and the plane reached the airport only a few minutes before the completion of the operation and immediately took off after picking the "wanted man" and the foreigner, who accompanied the commandos in the operation. When contacted hotel sources said the "kidnapped" person was a medium-built youth in his 30s, was trying to speak Seraiki but his Pashtoon accent was clearly noticeable. A room service waiter said that his (the kidnapped person's) black curly locks were drooping on his forehead. It was learnt that he never ordered for anything during his 34 hours stay in the hotel. It was also learnt that the "victim" reported at the hotel reception on Friday afternoon. But he was denied a room as he had only Rs 200 with him at that time, while the management demanded over Rs 400 as advance for two days stay. The person left the hotel and then returned at about sunset time, and gave Rs 500 to the receptionist. The white Pajeros bearing no number plates used in the operation, were seen plying on city roads even on Thursday. It was learnt that the operation was supervised by a military officer of higher than brigadier rank. Meanwhile, the Special Branch has taken in its custody record of the Shalimar hotel, while officials of intelligence agencies are also reportedly making inquiries from the hotel management. REFERENCE: Rumours surround Kansi's arrest Nadeem Saeed Malik DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 21 June 1997 Issue : 03/25 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1997/21Jun97.html#rumo

United States officials working with Afghan tribal leaders and Pakistani Intelligence officers have seized the lone suspect in the killing of two C.I.A. officers outside the agency's headquarters in Virginia, Government officials said today. After a four-and-a-half-year manhunt that reached from Washington's suburbs to Afghanistan's deserts, the suspect, Mir Amal Kansi, a 33-year-old Pakistani, was handed over by ''Afghan individuals'' after the United States had placed a $2 million reward on his head, the F.B.I. said tonight. Government officials refused to say whether the money had been paid to the Afghans or how they had captured the suspect. Mr. Kansi had been a fugitive since the morning of Jan. 25, 1993. That day, five commuters in a morning rush-hour jam outside the gates of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va., were shot by a man firing an AK-47 automatic rifle. All but one worked for the C.I.A. Two C.I.A. employees -- Frank Darling, a communications engineer, and Lansing Bennett, a doctor -- died.

Mr. Kansi's trail went cold by the time the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. tracked his path from his nearby apartment in Reston, Va., to Dulles International Airport. The day after the shootings, he boarded an international flight from New York to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, and a second flight to his family's home in Quetta, a town on Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan. He was believed to have fled into the lawless border land of Afghanistan, where guerrilla bands and tribal codes rule. The F.B.I. and the C.I.A., working with Pakistan's spy agency, Inter-services Intelligence, had been trying to lure the suspect back into Pakistan for years. They also sent word out to Afghan tribal and guerrilla leaders that Mr. Kansi had a $2 million price on his head. Mr. Kansi, who had been on the F.B.I.'s most wanted list, was flown to Dulles Airport and taken to the Fairfax County, Va., jail tonight. He is charged with murder under Virginia state law and was to be arraigned in Fairfax County Circuit Court on Wednesday. Although investigators have said that Mr. Kansi bore some grudge against the United States, they have also said they think he acted alone and was not part of a terrorist organization. In other words, despite the international manhunt for him, the shooting he is accused of might as well have occurred outside a tavern, legally speaking.

Paradoxically, Mr. Kansi is in greater jeopardy having been charged under Virginia state law than if he had been accused of a terrorist act under Federal law. That is because the current Federal death-penalty law did not take effect until 1994, the year after the killings he is accused of. But Virginia has been executing convicted murderers fairly regularly under its state homicide statute. The F.B.I.'s deputy director, William J. Esposito, credited the State Department for helping ''to make this arrest possible in the face of often overwhelming difficulties.'' The United States has no official presence in Afghanistan, which was nearly destroyed by Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1988 and infighting since then between rival factions, many of which were backed by the C.I.A. during the Soviet occupation.

Mr. Kansi's friends and relatives told United States officials that he had been mentally unstable since the death of his father, a wealthy tribal chief, in 1989. It is not known if the attack was politically motivated or if it was connected to the bombing of the World Trade Center one month later. The alleged mastermind of that attack, Ramzi Yousef, followed a similar escape route. Federal investigators plucked the threads of Mr. Kansi's tangled life for more than four years, looking for connections that would tie his past to the killings. They learned that the suspect's father was widely believed to have worked with the United States and Pakistani intelligence services during the Afghan guerrillas' fight against the Soviets. The C.I.A. and the Pakistani intelligence service had used Quetta as a way station for rebel arms shipments. Was there a resentment, a real or perceived double-cross? At about the time of his father's death in 1989, the investigators learned, Mr. Kansi participated in demonstrations against the United States at Baluchistan University in Quetta, where students waved ''Death to America'' signs. Was he recruited by a radical group?

Mr. Kansi suddenly decided to leave Quetta in 1990. He went to Germany for about three months, and then left just as suddenly for Herndon, Va., a suburb not far from Dulles International Airport, and about eight miles from the C.I.A.'s headquarters. He applied for political asylum -- the process was never completed -- and moved to a friend's apartment in Reston. After working at a string of menial jobs, he was hired in mid-1992 at a courier service that had the necessary security clearances to make deliveries to the intelligence agency. In a spy-novel twist, the courier service was owned by the son of a former C.I.A. official, Victor Marchetti, who had broken with the agency and co-wrote a book about it, ''The C.I.A. and the Cult of Intelligence.'' By late 1992, Federal investigators believe, the suspect had resolved to make a violent statement against the United States. They know that he bought an AK-47 rifle from a gun shop in Chantilly, Va., in January 1993. They interviewed his roommate, Zahed Ahmad Mir, who they said told them that Mr. Kansi wanted to use that rifle to attack a symbol of the United States -- the White House or the C.I.A. After Mr. Kansi fled, State Department officials started trying to make hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis and Afghans living in and around Quetta aware of the case. Wanted posters, handbills and even matchbooks with Mr. Kansi's image and the offer of the $2 million reward flooded the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Government officials said United States investigators, working with Pakistani military and intelligence officials, launched at least one operation to lure Mr. Kansi across the mountain passes from Afghanistan into a trap.

In the end, judging from the F.B.I.'s and C.I.A.'s statement saying that ''Afghan individuals'' had delivered up Mr. Kansi, it appeared tonight that word of a rich reward for Mr. Kansi's capture had reached a tribal leader in Afghanistan. Federal investigators have said in interviews over the last three years that they still do not know the source of his rage against the United States. They said it might have to do with the death of his father, or his uncle -- a Pakistani Government official killed in an 1984 ambush in Quetta -- or a friend who had fought with the C.I.A.-backed rebels in Afghanistan. But they noted that Mr. Kansi is a member of the Pathan tribe, which flourishes on both sides of the Khyber Pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that an old Pathan saying states that 100 years is too short a time to wait for revenge. The acting Director of Central Intelligence, George J. Tenet, echoed that thought tonight: ''We have always kept the faith and never wavered in our commitment to find the individual charged with this attack.''REFERENCE: U.S. Seizes the Lone Suspect In Killing of 2 C.I.A. Officers By TIM WEINER Published: June 18, 1997 http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/18/world/us-seizes-the-lone-suspect-in-killing-of-2-cia-officers.html?src=pm  http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/18/world/us-seizes-the-lone-suspect-in-killing-of-2-cia-officers.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/18/world/us-seizes-the-lone-suspect-in-killing-of-2-cia-officers.html?pagewanted=3&src=pm

WASHINGTON, June 18— Just before 4 A.M. on Sunday, five F.B.I. agents sneaked into a hostel in Afghanistan, where Afghan informants had told them they would find Mir Amal Kansi, one of the world's most wanted men, the suspect in a deadly 1993 rampage outside C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va..Senior law-enforcement and intelligence officials said Mr. Kansi, who had been asleep in bed, drowsily answered the knock at his door, then spat out a stream of expletives when the door was flung open. But he did not put up a fight as his flight from the law came to an end. ''Once he knew the jig was up, there was no resistance,'' one official said. Later, after a grueling overland trip to Pakistan to an air base at an undisclosed location, the agents and their captive boarded an American military aircraft, painted in camouflage markings with an American flag on the tail. Mr. Kansi switched from Pathan obscenities to polite English, the officials said. He had grown a beard since the attack, but when an agent showed him a wanted poster with his photograph, Mr. Kansi examined the clean-shaven likeness and said, ''Yes, that's me.'' Today Mr. Kansi, a 33-year-old Pakistani with a graduate degree in English and, the officials said, an unexplained grudge against the Central Intelligence Agency, was brought before a judge in Fairfax County in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. He was ordered held without bond by a judge in the shooting deaths of Lansing H. Bennett, a doctor, and Frank Darling, a communications engineer, both C.I.A. employees, on the morning of Jan. 25, 1993. He did not enter a plea because does not yet have a lawyer. The Afghans' decision to help the Americans ended a quest that had caused United States law-enforcement, intelligence and diplomatic officials years of frustration. And the capture of Mr. Kansi followed many failures, which were described by Government officials. F.B.I. agents, some disguised in burkas, the head-to-toe gowns women wear in religious communities of the region, had been searching for Mr. Kansi to no avail in and around Quetta, Pakistan, his home town, on the Afghan border.

There was a bad tip that Mr. Kansi, whose name is also spelled Mir Aimal Kansi and Mir Aimal Kasi, had fled to Thailand in 1994. There was a botched raid four years ago, when Pakistani military and intelligence officials, acting on a equally bad tip from the F.B.I., stormed the homes of Mr. Kansi's family in Quetta. They came up empty-handed, but not before offending local political sensibilities. But with the strange coalition of C.I.A. operatives, F.B.I. detectives, Pakistani spies and Afghan warriors on his trail, it was only a matter of time before the United States captured Mr. Kansi, Government officials said today. The breakthrough in the hunt came about two weeks ago through the C.I.A.'s Near East division via the intelligence agency's station in Pakistan. The agents there had maintained some paid informants among the Afghan tribal headmen, guerrilla fighters, religious leaders and village elders it had supported in a $3 billion covert operation against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980's.

Mr. Kansi, Government officials say, spent much of his time as a fugitive moving from mud-walled fort to mud-walled fort among the many members of his extended family on both sides of the lightly policed border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghans in the border region, where the economy is largely based on opium and smuggling, knew Mr. Kansi from his travels through Spin Buldak, a depot town on the only passable road linking Quetta with Afghanistan. Government officials said the Afghans decided to help apprehend Mr. Kansi in the hopes of a $2 million reward offered by the United States. The reward has not yet been paid, the officials said. The Afghans put out the word that they could deliver Mr. Kansi to a hostel near the border. United States officials hinted today that Mr. Kansi was lured to the hotel by a ruse. ''I don't think he thought he was going to be arrested,'' said one official. ''He showed up and we arrested him.'' The exact details of Mr. Kansi's capture are being withheld by United States officials, who would not say precisely where he was arrested or disclose other details. Their demurrals, one official said, were mostly in deference to Pakistan, the staging area for the arrest. Pakistan is an Islamic Republic and its officials do not want to be seen by some of its citizens as Washington's ally.

Without Pakistan's cooperation, the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. could not have worked the case. But that cooperation followed some pressure brought to bear on Pakistan under a June 1995 Presidential Decision Directive, a secret order in which the United States resolved to ''induce cooperation'' from foreign nations where suspected terrorists and criminals reside. The arrest lifted spirits at the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., two battered agencies whose past feuds are legendary. Today F.B.I. agents introduced to C.I.A. employees received a standing ovation -- probably the first time the bureau's agents had ever experienced such affection from their cousins at the intelligence agency. The F.B.I. agents ''put their lives on the line,'' the acting Director of Central Intelligence, George J. Tenet, told the audience gathered in ''the Bubble,'' the C.I.A.'s auditorium. He also praised officers from the C.I.A.'s Counterterrorist Center and its Near East operations division for ''a daring job well done.''

As the C.I.A. officers applauded, Mr. Kansi was being arraigned a few miles away in Fairfax, Va. Wearing a dark green prison suit, he appeared for two minutes at the Fairfax County court house, where he told Judge J. Howe Brown that he understood the charges against him. ''Do you have a lawyer?'' the judge asked. ''No, I don't,'' Kansi replied in faintly accented English. ''I don't have money to pay the lawyers, sir.'' Mr. Kansi, the son of a Pathan tribal leader who died in 1989 -- a death that some of his friends and relatives have said left him mentally unstable -- faces the death penalty if convicted on the murder charges. Photo: A United States Government poster released in August 1993 showed Mir Amal Kansi, wanted in the killing of two C.I.A. employees. (Agence France-Presse) REFERENCE: How the F.B.I. Got Its Man, Half the World Away By DAVID JOHNSTON Published: June 19, 1997 http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/19/world/how-the-fbi-got-its-man-half-the-world-away.html?ref=miramalkansi http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/19/world/how-the-fbi-got-its-man-half-the-world-away.html?ref=miramalkansi&pagewanted=2

NEW YORK, June 22: Ultimately it was the threat of broad-based international sanctions against Pakistan by the United States, which forced the Pakistan government to allow FBI and CIA agents to arrest and whisk away Mir Aimal Kansi to America, circumventing the extradition treaty between the two countries, highly informed sources here told Dawn. The sources say these sanctions would have affected, among other things, all trade with Pakistan and the loans of the donor agencies like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc, under the stipulation of international terrorism act signed by president Clinton in 1995. If the international terrorism act was invoked against Pakistan, it would have ended up putting the country on State Department's list of states sponsoring terrorism and the country would have been equated with Iran, Sudan and Libya. This stipulation would have also halted all trade with Pakistan and all loan and trade agreements would have been reviewed. Four days after Kansi's arrest, and arraignment at a court in Fairfax Virginia, details of the so-called "extraordinary diplomatic agreement" between the United States and Pakistan-which eased Kansi's arrest and his extradition without due process-still remain hidden. Officials in White House, State Department and the Justice Department refused to divulge any details about any "diplomatic agreement" when contacted by Dawn. The Washington Post was told by Clinton administration officials that "to facilitate Kansi's arrest and return to the United States," the State Department negotiated "an extraordinary diplomatic agreement" with another country. The officials insisted that the terms of agreement must remain secret to facilitate "future law enforcement operations." "Although the Clinton administration officials refused to name the so-called another country," Post report said "all indications point to Pakistan." Some sources here say that the State Department, under orders from president Clinton, who was informed of the operation on an hourly basis at times, had worked out a deal with Pakistan government and that prime minister Nawaz Sharif eventually gave the go-ahead. When Dawn asked the Pakistan ambassador in Washington, Riaz Khokhar, to discuss the so-called "diplomatic agreement" which helped the Americans to circumvent the extradition treaty between the two countries, he said, "I don't know anything about this agreement. Why don't you ask the State Department." "We have no idea here. Perhaps Islamabad knows. I cannot talk about this. Nothing was handled here." He added. Asked to comment on the extradition treaty, ambassador insisted that he would not be able to make any comments.

Meanwhile, sources told Dawn that when Senator Arlen Spector, chairman of the senate intelligence committee, wrote to president Clinton on Feb. 22, 1995, urging him to classify Kansi as an "international terrorist" and increase the reward for information leading to his arrest to $2 million, the international terrorist act was invoked. Senator Spector, the sources said, also wrote to the then prime minister Bhutto asking for Pakistan's help in apprehending Kansi. Benazir Bhutto, in fact, obliged the American government during her tenure by facilitating extradition of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the "mastermind" behind the World Trade Centre bombing. Yousef, who was arrested at an Islamabad hotel, was on FBI's top ten wanted list-like Kansi. When the break in the Aimal Kansi case came, the US intelligence agencies enlisted the help of Pakistan's intelligence agencies and commandos to carry out the operation. After browbeating the media for a day, the law enforcement officials here, in Washington, admitted that Mir Aimal Kansi was arrested from Hotel Shalimar, in Dera Ghazi Khan, on June 17, whisked away in a four-wheel-drive to an Islamabad airport strip controlled by Pakistan Air Force and was flown to the Dulles International Airport in Washington DC. The officials also disclosed that on board the flight, Kansi-who was very chatty-agreed to sign a confession admitting killing two CIA agents and wounding three others. He also agreed that it was his photograph which had appeared on the FBI wanted poster. Although, the prospective defence attorneys, to be appointed for Kansi on June 27, say that they believe Kansi's confession was illegal under American law, several experts here are of the opinion that, after legal wrangling, his confession will be admitted by the Fairfax court. "He has to get a powerful lawyer who can force the proceedings to another location and make the court throw out the confession taken aboard the plane, otherwise, Kansi is doomed for sure," said a legal expert here. As a matter of fact, the Virginia state's attorneys are furious that the report about Kansi's confession was leaked out to the press by some law-enforcement agents. They believe that Kansi's attorneys will use this information to ask the court to disregard the confession. While the American law, as it is, will be fully exploited by the attorneys for Kansi here, but circumventing of the international law by the United States in its eagerness to send a message to the "terrorists" the world over has not been questioned. REFERENCE: US had warned Pakistan of sanctions Masood Haider DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 28 June 1997 Issue : 03/26 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1997/28Jun97.html

THE sensational arrest and extradition of Aimal Kansi has raised some fundamental constitutional and legal issues. It is also reminiscent of the extraordinary manner in which Ramzi Ahmed Yousaf was earlier extradited to the United States. In this age of shrinking world, extradition of citizens to states where they have committed some offence is not an uncommon phenomenon. The global community must unite and make a concerted effort to send a clear message to international outlaws that they cannot escape the long arm of the law by slipping into the borders of other countries, including their own. There must be no sanctuaries for those who perpetrate violence or engage in drug-trafficking and similar other heinous crimes. Nothing short of a global crusade against these criminals would suffice. In Pakistan the law relating to extraditions is governed by the Extradition Act, 1972. Pakistan has extradition treaties with various countries, including the United States (this was a pre-independence treaty between the UK and the US which has been adopted by Pakistan). So far Pakistan has extradited more than twenty or so of its citizens to America. Pakistan has also requested extradition / deportation of some of the Pakistanis from the US. So far the US has not extradited / deported any expatriate Pakistani as a result of the request by our government. It has been one-sided compliance all along. Although most of the extraditions from Pakistan have been on drug related offences, these two most sensational cases relate to the bombing of the World Trade Centre and the murder of two CIA agents reportedly by Ramzi Yousaf and Aimal Kansi respectively. Regardless of one's political sympathies, terrorism simply cannot be condoned and its perpetrators must be brought to justice. Yet in facilitating the arrest of such offenders, the government of Pakistan has violated the specific provisions of our own law. Violation of law at the hands of criminals is understandable but what is hard to stomach is when governments deliberately flout the laws of the land.

The procedure for extradition under the Extradition Act, 1972, is that a requisition for surrender of a fugitive from justice is made to the government by the country seeking his arrest and extradition. Thereafter, a magistrate issues a warrant of arrest. When the offender appears before the magistrate, evidence is adduced. The magistrate is also required to see if the offence is an extradition offence and is not an offence of a political nature. If it is the latter, there can be no extradition. On the conclusion of the inquiry, if the magistrate is satisfied that no prima facie case is made out, he is required to discharge the offender. On the other hand, if a prima facie case for extradition is made out, the magistrate reports the matter to the government and commits him to prison subject to his entitlement to bail. On receipt of the report of the magistrate, if the government is of the opinion that the offender ought to be surrendered, it may issue a warrant for the custody and his removal. However, the Act specifically provides that the offender shall not be delivered until after the expiration of fifteen days from the date he has been taken under such warrant. The extradition of Ramzi Yousaf as well as that of Aimal Kansi clearly violated these provisions. Immediately on their arrest, they were handed over to American agents (reportedly they were arrested by American agents themselves) who immediately whisked them to the waiting special American aircraft which flew them to the United States.

Even a more pertinent question than the violation of the provisions of the Act is whether the Constitution at all permits extradition of Pakistani citizens. The Constitutions of 1956, 1962 and 1972 (interim) provided for the fundamental right of free movement in the following terms: "Subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in public interest, every citizen shall have the right to move freely throughout Pakistan and to reside and settle in any part thereof. This obviously meant that the citizens were guaranteed the freedom of movement throughout the country as well as the right to reside and settle anywhere in the country, subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by law. The language clearly suggests that there was no absolute right as such. This may be compared with the language of Article 15 of the Constitution of 1973, which provides that: "every citizen shall have the right to remain in, and, subject to any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the public interest, enter and move freely throughout Pakistan and to reside and settle in any part thereof." There is an obvious departure from the previous constitutional provisions. The language clearly indicates that although the right to enter, move, reside and settle in Pakistan is subject to restrictions imposed by law, there can be no such restriction with respect to the right to remain in Pakistan.

Consequently, a person who is a citizen of Pakistan could not be extradited to any other country. Justice Muhammad Munir, the former Chief Justice of Pakistan in his commentary on the Constitution observed that "this right is absolute and unqualified. A citizen cannot, therefore, be expelled or banished from the country."

However, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has not accepted this interpretation of Article 15. The issue arose in the case of Nasrullah Khan Hanjera V Pakistan, PLD 1994 SC 23. Besides this argument, it was also submitted that quite a few countries, particularly France, do not extradite their citizens. The Supreme Court rejected the argument on the basis of reasoning which lacks the cogency which is otherwise the hallmark of the apex court. The Supreme Court based its decision on two grounds. Firstly, their Lordships referred to the Objectives Resolution and observed: "It does not stand to reason that, on the one hand, one Constitution after another should be reiterating the commitment of the Pakistan nation to attainment of an honoured place amongst the nations of the world, yet, on the other hand, it should incorporate a provision which would make Pakistan a safe haven for those of its citizens who commit serious crimes abroad and then take refuge in Pakistan to avoid punishment."

The second reason which persuaded the honourable court was that, "if a Pakistani citizen while outside its limits commits an offence which is not covered by a Pakistani law having extra-territorial applicability, and then manages to return to Pakistan he would enjoy complete immunity from prosecution and if Article 15 is interpreted in the manner suggested..., it will also not be permissible to send him to the country where he committed the offence." The infirmity in the above reasoning immediately becomes obvious. As far as the first reason is concerned, it is difficult to see why a country would lose its honour if its constitution prohibits extradition of its citizens for crimes committed abroad. If there is any one nation in the world which is most conscious about its honour and proud of its legacy, it is France and it does not extradite its citizens, whatever the crime some of them may commit in a foreign country and does not feel apologetic about it. Some other European countries too follow the same practice without their honour

or their dignity diminished in the eyes of the world community.

As to the second reason given by their Lordships, it is true that if a Pakistani commits an offence which is a crime in another country but not so in Pakistan, then he cannot be tried here. Hence the only way, observed the Supreme Court, is to extradite him to that country where he committed the offence. This, however, ignores the provisions of the Extradition act, 1972. Section 2(1) of the Act defines "extradition offence" for which a citizens can be extradited. It provides that "extradition offence means an offence the act or omission constituting which falls within any of the descriptions set out in the schedule and, if it took place within, or within the jurisdiction of, Pakistan would constitute an offence against the law of Pakistan."

In other words, there can be extradition only for an act which is an offence in both countries and unless that is so, there can be no extradition. Hence in the example given by their Lordships, there can be no extradition in any event. This judgment of the Supreme Court needs to be reconsidered by the apex court.There is little doubt that by the two extraditions mentioned at the outset, Pakistan may have earned the appreciation of the United States (whatever it is worth) but we must not delude ourselves that it has also enhanced our respect and dignity in the wider world. If we compromise on our self-respect, dignity and sovereignty and make ourselves amenable to the dictates of the big powers in disregard to our own laws, we would only lower ourselves in the estimation of other nations. It is not argued here that Pakistan should spoil its relationship with the United States or provide a safe haven for international terrorists. What is stressed here is that we should not compromise our self-respect even in adversity. We must have greater confidence in our own legal system and uphold due process of law under all circumstances. If there are flaws in the system - and there are quite a few - the solution lies in improving it rather than ignoring it. The Ramzis and Kansis of this world deserve no sympathy. But it is not just their interest; it is the supremacy of law that is at stake. We should not allow our legal system to be sidetracked for the benefit of our friends and allies. REFERENCE: Bypassing the law of extradition Khalid Jawed Khan DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 28 June 1997 Issue : 03/26 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1997/28Jun97.html#bypa

WASHINGTON — Mir Aimal Kansi, the alleged gunman in a ruthless 1993 shooting spree outside CIA headquarters that left two agency employees dead and three others wounded, has been captured and secretly brought back to the United States to face murder charges, the CIA and FBI announced Tuesday. Kansi, a Pakistani immigrant, coldly machine-gunned motorists stuck in morning rush-hour traffic at an intersection outside the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va., U.S. officials charge. He was turned over to American officials by Afghans cooperating with the FBI and CIA, the government said. Officials said that Kansi, who is being held in the Fairfax County Jail, is expected to be arraigned in a Fairfax County court this morning. He faces state murder charges and could get the death penalty if convicted. After fleeing the United States for Pakistan after the shooting, Kansi, now 33, had managed for more than four years to elude one of the most intensive international manhunts ever mounted by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence operatives.

U.S. officials frequently have complained that the Pakistani government was unwilling to cooperate in the Kansi search, making it far more difficult for FBI and CIA officers to corner him in his native province of Baluchistan in the rugged triangle where Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan meet. Kansi has been a fixture on the FBI's most-wanted list and his arrest has long been one of the CIA's highest priorities. Secret CIA-FBI paramilitary operations to capture him inside Pakistan or Afghanistan--authorized under a presidential covert action order on the international apprehension of terrorists--had been attempted repeatedly without success. Once Kansi was identified as the prime suspect soon after the shootings, his origins led to speculation that his actions were somehow motivated by revenge for the CIA's role in the Afghan war in the 1980s--and thus might be what the CIA calls "blowback" from its Afghan covert actions. Baluchistan was said to be a key staging area for CIA arms shipments to the Afghan rebels.

At the time, the Jan. 25, 1993, shooting spree outside CIA headquarters was one of the most brutal acts of international terrorism ever mounted inside the United States and certainly was one of the most frightening. It exploited a sense of claustrophobia that almost all Americans share about being trapped in rush-hour gridlock. As CIA employees were driving to work just before 8 a.m., Kansi allegedly stopped his car on Virginia Route 123, got out, pulled out an AK-47 assault rifle and calmly began firing through windows as he walked up and down a line of cars waiting to turn into the CIA entrance. The gunman's first victim was Frank Darling, a 28-year-old CIA communications expert who was sitting in his Volkswagen with his wife beside him. Kansi allegedly fired at least 70 rounds as he moved down the line of cars, also killing Lansing Bennett, a 66-year-old physician and CIA intelligence analyst. Two of the three wounded were also CIA employees.

In the panic and confusion after the shooting, Kansi allegedly was able to drive away and slip out of the country before the FBI announced that it had begun a worldwide search for him. A gun shop owner in Chantilly, Va., had seen an FBI composite sketch of the suspect and matched him through his gun purchase records. By then Kansi had made his way back to his Pakistani hometown of Quetta, where he appeared to benefit from the protection of his extended family and perhaps from his family's political influence with the Pakistani government. Over the years, the CIA developed a detailed psychological profile of Kansi and concluded that he was the underachieving son of a prominent Pakistani family who burned with the desire to make a name for himself. His father, Abdullah Jan Kansi, was a prominent leader in Quetta and was able to send his son to a local university. In 1991, Kansi came to the United States and applied to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for political asylum in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Va., about a year later. By 1993, Kansi was living in Reston, Va., outside Washington with a roommate, Zahed Ahmad Mir, who allegedly accompanied him to buy the AK-47 used in the assault. Mir later told authorities that Kansi said he was angered by the fact that the United States was not doing enough to help the besieged Muslims in Bosnia and told Mir that he planned to "make a big statement" by shooting up the CIA, the White House or the Israeli Embassy.

In a joint CIA-FBI statement Tuesday night, Acting CIA Director George J. Tenet exulted over Kansi's capture, saying that "we have always kept the faith. . . . Today marks a clear triumph of good over evil." The arrest "in no way lessens the pain of those wounded . . . nor the despair experienced by the families who lost a loved one but it is my sincere hope that seeing Kansi brought to justice will provide some small solace," he said. FBI Deputy Director William Esposito added that Kansi's arrest was attributable to cooperation not only between the CIA and the FBI but with the State Department as well. Although the CIA-FBI statement referred only to the cooperation of individual Afghans, there were reports Tuesday night that the Pakistani government finally had been pressured to cooperate in Kansi's apprehension after years of inaction and foot-dragging. That would mark a significant shift in the region, since the United States previously has relied on individual CIA informants rather than the government itself. REFERENCE: Suspect in '93 Shooting Spree at CIA Captured June 18, 1997|JAMES RISEN | TIMES STAFF WRITER http://articles.latimes.com/1997-06-18/news/mn-4362_1_cia-headquarters  http://articles.latimes.com/1997-06-18/news/mn-4362_1_cia-headquarters/2

WASHINGTON — It was just before dawn on Sunday morning when five members of the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team rushed into a hotel somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and finally came face-to-face with one of the world's most wanted men: Mir Aimal Kansi. Awakened by a knock on his door, Kansi--the suspected gunman in a brutal 1993 shooting spree outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., that left two dead--opened the door and gave up without resistance. And his arrest brought to a conclusion a secret joint operation that ultimately involved the CIA, FBI, State Department, Afghan informants and, according to sources, the Pakistani government. Details of Kansi's capture and return to the United States on Tuesday night to face murder charges were revealed Wednesday by jubilant FBI and CIA officials. The successful operation clearly boosted sagging morale at the CIA--buffeted in recent years by various spy scandals--while ending a frustrating four-year search for the man suspected of bringing terror to the agency's front door.

Kansi, 33, appeared briefly in court Wednesday morning; Fairfax, Va., Circuit Judge J. Howe Brown ordered him held without bail while awaiting trial on two counts of murder, three counts of maiming and five counts of using a firearm in the commission of a crime. Bearded and wearing green prison overalls, Kansi told Brown he cannot afford a lawyer. Brown ordered him held without bail, asked the state to determine whether Kansi should be given a public defender and scheduled a June 27 arraignment. Prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. said he would ask for the death penalty.

Government officials, who once speculated that Kansi was part of a broader international terrorist conspiracy, now say they believe he acted alone in the CIA shootings. Sources have said Kansi became mentally unstable following the death of a close family member before the attack. His former roommate, meanwhile, told authorities soon after the shootings that Kansi had been angered by America's refusal to do more to help the Muslims in Bosnia. But officials declined on Wednesday to speculate about Kansi's motives. FBI and CIA officials were still reluctant Wednesday to provide a full account of Kansi's arrest, apparently because Pakistan does not want to publicly acknowledge its cooperation with the United States for fear of reprisals from radical Muslim groups. But the officials stressed that the joint operation was an example of new cooperation between the CIA and FBI--and of the degree to which the agencies have put their traditional turf battles behind them. In fact, the FBI agent who led the team that arrested Kansi was treated to a hero's welcome at CIA headquarters Wednesday morning, receiving a standing ovation from CIA employees gathered in the agency's auditorium.

"It was probably the first time that an FBI agent has ever received a standing ovation at the CIA," quipped one senior CIA official. President Clinton, who personally approved the FBI-CIA operation, was "delighted" by the outcome, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Wednesday. In the Jan. 25, 1993, shootings, Kansi allegedly mowed down motorists trapped in morning rush-hour traffic, targeting people in cars lined up to enter the CIA headquarters complex. Both of those killed were CIA officers, as were two of the three people wounded. The FBI and CIA have tried several times to find and capture Kansi, but he had been able to elude them in his native Pakistan, and more recently in the rugged and remote reaches of Afghanistan. Officials said Wednesday that Kansi never traveled widely once he returned to his native region after the shooting, and in the last two years he had spent most of his time in Afghanistan. Apprehending Kansi remained one of the intelligence community's top priorities, and the FBI and CIA repeatedly planned covert operations designed to nab him, officials said. One plan called for a U.S. aircraft to fly out of Oman in the Persian Gulf and land a team to pick up Kansi after he was delivered to a prearranged location by Afghans cooperating with the CIA.

Each plan ended in frustration. "We had several windows of opportunity, but the windows never stayed open long enough," noted a CIA official. But government agents kept working the case, while the State Department announced a $2-million reward for Kansi's capture. Pakistani intelligence agents have also apparently cooperated in the hunt in recent years. Officials said that during the flight, Kansi acknowledged his identity, admitting he is the man on an FBI wanted poster. The officials said he engaged in conversation with FBI agents, but they declined to say whether he had confessed to the shootings. A senior CIA official said Wednesday the agency does not believe Kansi was ever connected to the CIA's covert war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. There had been speculation that he might have harbored some old grudges against the CIA, since the agency shipped arms to the Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet Union through the remote Pakistani province where Kansi grew up. REFERENCE: Arrest Shows New Teamwork for CIA, FBI June 19, 1997|JAMES RISEN | TIMES STAFF WRITER http://articles.latimes.com/1997-06-19/news/mn-4882_1_cia-official 

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