October 23, 2001: Yemeni Suspect in Pakistan Is Renditioned by US and Disappears

Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, a microbiology student from Yemen who is suspected of membership in al-Qaeda and involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole, is apprehended in Pakistan by the Pakistani ISI at the request of the US. [Associated Press, 10/28/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 10/28/2001; Washington Post, 3/11/2002] In the early hours of October 23, 2001, he is taken to a secluded part of Karachi International Airport. Shackled and blindfolded, the Pakistanis deliver him to US agents, according to the Washington Post, “without extradition or deportation papers.” [Washington Post, 3/11/2002] From there, at about 2:40 a.m., Mohammed is put on a US-registered jet and flown to Jordan. His fate is unknown from then on. [Amnesty International, 8/19/2003] The plane is a Gulfstream V with tail number N379P, owned by a company named Premier Executive Transport Services Inc. (PETS), in Dedham, Massachusetts. The company is apparently a CIA front. [Washington Post, 12/27/2004] Reporter Fredrik Laurin later discovers that the chartered Gulfstream is leased almost exclusively to the US administration. [Guardian, 9/13/2004] Since its discovery, this Gulfstream will be spotted at Washington’s Dulles International Airport, Guantanamo Bay, Amman (the military airport), Baghdad, Baku, Cairo, Dubai, Islamabad, Karachi, Kuwait City, Rabat, Riyadh, and Tashkent, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Stockholm, Larnaca on Cyprus, and other airports in England and Ireland. [Washington Post, 7/25/2004; Washington Post, 12/27/2004] The jet will further be found to have a permit to land at US military bases around the world. [Guardian, 9/13/2004] As of early 2008, he still has not been seen or heard of anywhere. Amnesty International has asked the Jordanian government for information on his whereabouts but has not received an answer. [Washington Post, 12/1/2007]