Via NYTimes.com -
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A man who was arrested in Pakistan last year on suspicion of plotting to blow up trans-Atlantic airplanes and who faced extradition to Britain in another case, escaped from his guards Saturday after a court hearing here, officials said Sunday.
The suspect, Rashid Rauf, 26, apparently slipped out of his handcuffs and darted away just after the afternoon extradition hearing, said Muhammad Arshad, the station officer at the local Margalla police station. Two of the policemen guarding him were arrested in the incident, he said, but he added that he did not think they had helped Mr. Rauf to escape.
An Interior Ministry spokesman, Javed Iqbal Cheema, confirmed that Mr. Rauf had escaped and that a police search was under way, news agencies reported.
The disappearance of a terrorism suspect wanted in Britain was an embarrassment to the government of Pakistan a day after President Pervez Musharraf ended six weeks of de facto martial law, announcing that security forces had broken the back of militants fighting in the northwest and that stability was returning.
Mr. Rauf’s lawyer, Rizvan Abbassi, said that news of the escape had surprised him. He said Mr. Rauf seemed normal in court on Saturday afternoon. Mr. Abbassi said he had not seen what happened after the hearing because he had left early to attend to another case.
“If it has been done by him, it is sheer stupidity on his part because the case for his extradition was not strong,” Mr. Abbassi said. He had planned to apply for bail for Mr. Rauf on Monday and had been confident of getting it, he said.
Hashmat Habib, who defended Mr. Rauf when he faced terrorism charges last year, said reports that he had escaped were suspicious. “My observation is it is not a case of escape, it is a case of mysterious disappearance, or he has been taken away,” he said.
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