Two Pakistani citizens have been extradited to the U.S. to face narco-terrorism charges after a lengthy legal battle. The two Pakistanis nationals are accused of conspiring with a foreign based terror organization, which according to U.S. law necessitated their immediate arrest and extradition.
Pirzada Khawaja Abdul Wahab Chishti and Przada Khawaja Abdul Hameed Chishti were both arrested in Spain back in 2014. The two were arrested with codefendants Ali Danish and Sohail Kaskar.
The U.S. had been seeking the extradition of all the accused. However, only those of Wahab Chishti and Hameed Chishti have been secured. The two appeared before a federal Manhattan court judge on Friday.
On Friday, U.S. prosecutors alleged that the two had been attempting to provide material support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a group flagged by the U.S. authorities as a terror organization.
The assistance is said to have included the sale of several pounds of heroin and also Russian-made missiles to aid the organization’s drug trafficking business.
Prosecutors allege both Wahab Chishti, 49, and Hameed Chishti, 47, had met with members of the terror organization on various dates between 2013 and 2014. Their identities were given by undercover U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informants posing as members of the group.
A statement from the DEA Special Agent in charge Mark Hamlet said, “Hameed and Wahab Chishti illustrate once again that drug trafficking and terror conspiracies often intersect, support, and facilitate each other’s dangerous and potentially deadly plots.”
The charges the two will face include conspiring to commit narco-terrorism, providing material foreign support to a terror organization, selling of surface to air missile launching systems and the importation of heroin. If convicted, the two will face life in prison.
The U.S. is still seeking the extradition of the other two co defendants Sohail Kaskar and Ali Danish.
The U.S. has put its foot down on the fight against drug cartels aiding terror organizations through funding and sale of armory. To make the world a better place, narcotics gangs have to be stopped before their ties with terrorists grow so deep it is impossible to differentiate the two.
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