|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Pakistani: Al-Qaida Terror Confession Was Coerced NEW YORK -- A Pakistani man accused of trying to help an al-Qaida operative slip past U.S. immigration officials testified Monday that investigators pressured him into making a false confession. "Every time I told the truth, they told me ... I was being uncooperative," Uzair Paracha said. "So I told them what I thought they wanted to hear." In closing arguments, prosecutor Karl Metzner charged that Paracha volunteered information about his involvement in a plot by alleged al-Qaida member Majid Khan. "Nobody put any words into Mr. Paracha's mouth," Metzner told the jury. Paracha, 25, agreed to help Khan sneak into the country using fake travel documents, and "did so knowing that a terrorist was coming here for one purpose: to kill Americans," Metzner said. Defense attorney Edward Wilford accused the FBI of denying Paracha food and sleep, and of strip searching him during endless hours of questioning _ "the ideal conditions to create a false confession." Though well-educated, his client lacked the street smarts to stand up for himself, the lawyer said. Paracha "was a dupe in every sense of the word," Wilford said. Paracha grew up in Pakistan, but has lived off and on for many years in New York, where his family has several business ventures. Jurors were expected to begin deliberating on Tuesday. Paracha's father, Saifullah Paracha, is being held
as an enemy combatant in the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba. He is suspected of laundering money for terrorists and associating
with major al-Qaida figures, including top operative Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
He has not been charged and has denied the allegations. |
