Pakistan Hands '20th Hijacker' to Us

Ramzi Binalshibh the man now alleged by United States authorities to have been the 20th hijacker, has been taken into American custody.

Binalshibh, the Yemeni who may be the one surviving member of the al-Qaida team that carried out the September 11 attacks, according to the FBI, was captured last week in Pakistan. He has now reportedly been flown out of the country.

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said at a Pentagon briefing yesterday that it was now up to President Bush to decide whether Binalshibh would face a military tribunal. He said that he did not believe that Mr Bush, who was fundraising for Republican candidates yesterday, had yet made that decision.

He would not disclose where Binalshibh was being detained. "I don't want to get into that," said Mr Rumsfeld when reporters posed the question. Earlier reports suggested that he was being held on a US warship off Pakistan. He could be moved either to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba with other al-Qaida suspects or to a military prison in the US.

"We have control of him. We're talking to him," a US official told Reuters yesterday.

Binalshibh was caught after a shoot-out in Karachi last week in which two people were killed. Initial reports indicated that he had been transferred to a US warship.

It is now being claimed that Binalshibh may have knowledge of the murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal correspondent who was killed in Pakistan earlier this year. This would be the first linkage of al-Qaida to the Pearl killing.

The Pakistani interior minister, Moinuddin Haider, said in Karachi on Monday that his country was ready to allow the extradition of Binalshibh to the US once the necessary legal procedures had been completed, even though this was likely to be an unpopular decision with many Pakistanis.

"Pakistan is obliged under international law to hand over the suspect to the country where they are wanted," Mr Haider said. "But there is a legal procedure for such an extradition and that would be followed."

Binalshibh is alleged to have been a former flatmate in Hamburg of the leader of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, and a key member of the al-Qaida cell based in the German city of Hamburg. He is suspected of having played a major role in the planning of September 11 and it is claimed that it was only because he was unable to obtain a visa to enter the United States that he did not take his place as a hijacker.

The focus on Binalshibh may also have relevance to the upcoming trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who had previously been described as the "20th hijacker". Mr Moussaoui has denied involvement in the September 11 attacks but was routinely called the 20th hijacker until the emergence of Binalshibh.

The Yemeni has also been sought by the German government who had issued an international arrest warrant for him. At the weekend, however, the German authorities indi cated that they were prepared to waive their rights in favour of the United States, a decision that was welcomed by the American attorney general, John Ashcroft.

The men captured with Binalshibh last week were described as merely his Yemeni bodyguards. It is not believed that they had a role in al-Qaida.

Binalshibh, who was paraded, blindfolded, by the Pakistan authorities, boasted of his role in planning the attacks during an interview in Karachi with al-Jazeera, the Arab language television station.