In a forum in Pakistan, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf indicated Abu Faraj al-Libbi has been deported to the United States, an action that was debated in length immediately following the terrorist’s arrest.

“I assume that he has been deported”, said President General Pervez Musharraf while responding to a question ay a forum being organized by the CNN that was televised live. “We had decided that having gathered all the information, interrogated him, we don’t want him in Pakistan,” he said.

[snip]

To a question why Pakistan agreed to deport him when he had twice tried to kill him, the President said that “Yes, indeed, he did attack me twice. But then there are other more important issues of his role in al Qaeda and his information and intelligence that needs to be corroborated with all the other intelligence gathered through interrogation of other al Qaeda personalities who we have apprehended.” Therefore, he said, these are bigger issues involved and finally we will come to his trial later.

This reasoning to deport al-Libbi is quite odd considering CIA and MI6 were at interrogations of al-Libbi in Pakistan, although there is likely much more information which al-Libbi is not disclosing and hopefully the CIA could get it out of him. I would imagine more of it has to do with the climate in Pakistan that would grow against Musharraf if he continued to detain al-Libbi.

Al-Libbi is of course the Al Qaida number three in charge of operations who was captured in Pakistan while wearing a burqa to elude Pakistani forces. I’ve written several posts concerning who al-Libbi is and the details of his arrest. Access the archive here.