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20 Algerians sent home
 Twenty Algerians including Mehdi Rabah, former chief khateeb of Algeria, have left for their home country after they were freed from Peshawar Central Jail on Tuesday. They were arrested in the tribal areas of Pakistan for alleged links to Al Qaeda in 2001. Javed Ibrahim Paracha, chairman of the World Prisoner's Relief Commission in Pakistan, brought Rabah out of the jail in his car, which was escorted by vehicles of the intelligence agencies and Frontier Police, while the Al-Khidmat Foundation ferried female members of the released family to the Algerian embassy in Islamabad, a press release stated. Paracha said that Additional Sessions Judge Syed Ihtisham Ali had ordered their release last month.Algerian Consular General Ghadeer-Al-Imrani received the released prisoner at the embassy, while a large number of people including Taliban and people from Malakand Division gave a dinner in their honour. They later left for their country in the early hours of Wednesday. Paracha told Daily Times that Mehdi Rabah was sent to Saudi Arabia on deputation in the late 1990s and later joined Islamabad International University in Pakistan. He said that after US attack on Afghanistan, Rabah decided to fight against the US, and he was ultimately arrested. Posted by: Fred 2006-07-20 |
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