‘US will not let Kashmiris down’

WASHINGTON - Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, an American citizen accused of illegally lobbying for Pakistan over the Kashmir issue, was ordered to be released from jail while awaiting trial, a US judge ruled on Tuesday.
Magistrate Judge John Anderson rejected the argument of a US prosecutor who said that Fai, 62, represented a flight risk and should be kept in jail. Fai, who hails from Indian-occupied Kashmir, was arrested last week. Fai, executive director of Washington-based Kashmiri-American Council, and Zaheer Ahmad, 63, were charged with taking part in a conspiracy to act as Pakistani agents in the United States without registering as foreign agents. Ahmad, also a naturalised US citizen, is believed to be in Pakistan.
Fai will now remain under detention in his home in Virginia and be subject to electronic surveillance. He has been barred from travelling outside the Washington metro area or meet representative of any foreign government. The case could add to the already difficult relationship between Washington and Islamabad after US forces conducted a secret raid in Pakistan in May that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
At a hearing in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, the judge ruled that Fai must post $100,000. The courtroom was packed with Fai’s supporters.
An FBI affidavit filed in court last week said Fai and the group received more than $4 million from the Pakistani government since the mid-1990s in an effort to influence the US government’s position on Kashmir.
The affidavit said a confidential witness told US investigators that ISI secretly sponsored and controlled Fai’s organisation and directed him for years.
Prosecutor Gordon Kromberg said at the hearing that Fai admitted to an FBI agent after his arrest last week his affiliation with the Pakistani intelligence agency for 15 years and that he had been in contact with his “handlers.” Kromberg said the foreign intelligence service has an obligation to protect Fai and that he presented a risk of fleeing the country.
Defence lawyer Nina Ginsberg disagreed. She said Pakistan has strenuously denied the allegations in the case and that there was no evidence to support Kromberg’s claims that the intelligence agency would try to help Fai. Fai, who did not say anything during the hearing, faces up to five years in prison if convicted. No date has been set for his trial.
Agencies add: Kashmiri leader Ghulam Nabi Fai has said that people of Kashmir have no reason to fear from America.
“I say with fullest possible consciousness that the people of Kashmir have no reason to fear that the world powers in general, and the United States in particular, will let them down,” Fai said in a written statement.
Fai’s attorney Khurram Wahid distributed copies of the written statement of the Kashmiri leader after he was ordered to be released from prison by a US District court judge.
“It has been my lifelong commitment to the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, irrespective of their religious background and cultural affiliations to help achieve the right of self-determination to decide their future. God willing I will continue to do that in days, weeks, months and years to come,” Fai said.
In the statement, Fai lauded the traditional support of the US to the basic principles of fundamental freedoms and democratic process and President Barack Obama’s vision about the region of South Asia.
Wahid said the statement was prepared after the court’s order of his house arrest.