Ghost Plane

The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Rendition Programme

Stephen Grey

Preface

In the summer of 2005-6, many were surprised to learn of a case of rendition from South Africa. Khalid Mahmood Rashid had been deported from the country on November 6, 2005, back to his native Pakistan, a matter which received little attention at the time.

It emerged that Rashid’s deportation was no ordinary transfer. Seized in a raid, and given no opportunity to make any kind of legal challenge, Rashid was bundled on-board an executive Gulfstream II jet and flown away from the Waterkloof air base outside Pretoria. The South African government was angered by press coverage of the case, accusing Rashid’s lawyer of denigrating the country. In what Anton Harber, the former editor of the country’s Mail & Guardian, described as “one of the most graphic examples of how governments torture language to avoid reality”, an official was quoted as saying it was not a rendition, nor an extradition, but a “special arrangement” with Pakistan, where the man was wanted for terrorism.

But the use of immigration laws, in the absence of extradition or any court hearing before Rashid’s expulsion, or even a chance to see a lawyer, was typical of a US-organised rendition case. And the expensive means by which he was expelled --- the use of a jet hired from a company registered in the United Arab Emirates --- provided a further indication of American involvement. Since his expulsion, Pakistani officials testified he had arrived in Pakistan in good condition, but, at the time of writing, he had disappeared within the country’s prison system --- with no word to his family of his fate or sign that he would be brought to a public courtroom. It was a real surprise that such a liberal South African government should take no account of the fate that awaited Rashid in a Pakistan prison. Its failure to take his fate into account was, almost certainly, a breach of its obligations under the UN Convention against Torture.

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