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The United States arranged a secret airlift last month to deport 131 Pakistani detainees who had been held for months after the September 11 attacks, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Most of the detainees had been arrested under a US Justice Department programme targeting immigrants who have ignored previous deportation orders and who came under scrutiny after the attacks, the newspaper said, citing a Pakistani official.
None of the detainees, 130 men and one woman, appeared to have links to terrorism, US officials told the newspaper.
US officials said the operation was kept secret for security reasons and that the government used a Portuguese charter flight for the airlift because of concerns that a US government jet would be a potential target, the newspaper reported.
US and Pakistani officials arranged the airlift as a way to resolve contentious diplomatic issues that have arisen between the two countries since the Justice Department began detaining immigrants in the United States, the report said.
"The Pakistani government was extremely cooperative in helping us ensure that these individuals were repatriated with safety, speed and dignity," said Karen Kraushaar, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Naturalisation Service.
The newspaper said the detainees were escorted to an airport in Louisiana by INS agents from 22 cities and airlifted out of the country on June 26.
Citing security concerns, the government did not release any information about the flight to the detainees or to their families, the report said.
The flight was originally scheduled to carry 170 detainees, but 39 obtained court rulings blocking their deportation, said Imran Ali, a Pakistani consular officer who accompanied the detainees to Islamabad.
The Justice Department has said more than 750 people have been detained on immigration violations nationwide during the investigation into the Sept. 11 hijacked airline attacks that killed 3,056 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
As of June 13, a total of 74 foreign nationals remained in detention on immigration-related charges.
Reuters
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