ISLAMABAD, June 3: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will take up the case of Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani citizen detained in the US military prison Guantanamo Bay for four years, during his official visit to Washington next month.

This was stated by Zachary Katznelson, legal director of Reprieve, a UK-based organisation working for prisoners on death row, in an interview with Dawn.

Mr Zachary has taken up the case of Mr Paracha and 27 other Muslim inmates and demanded that the US authorities should either produce them in court for trial under international laws or send them back to their own countries for prosecution there.

He is on a visit to Islamabad and is meeting parliamentarians, senators and officials of the interior and foreign ministries asking them to pursue the case of Mr Paracha.

He said that Mr Paracha, who suffered from heart ailment, had been denied medical treatment outside the camp.

“Only politics can free Paracha,” Mr Zachary said and cited examples of several Europeans suspects who were freed after their governments contacted President George and demanded release of their citizens.

Pakistan also must use its good relations with the US and get its citizen freed, he said.

Mr Paracha, a 60-year-old Karachi-based businessman, disappeared in Bangkok on July 6, 2003, while he was there on a business trip.

He was later found by the International Committee of Red Cross among the detainees of the Camp-5 Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Mr Paracha is accused of having links with Al Qaeda and meeting with Osama Bin Laden and three other masterminds of the 9/11 attacks, including Khalid Shaikh Mohamad and Majid Khan.

He is also accused of being involved in a plan to smuggle explosives into the US.

The son of Mr Paracha, Uzair, was sentenced to 30-year imprisonment by a US court in 2005 for helping Majid Khan in getting the US citizenship. Both the father and the son have denied the charges.

Mr Katznelson there were around 130 Saudi citizens in the Guantanamo camp. But the Saudi King demanded the release of his citizens and as a result there were now only 13 Saudi citizens in the camp.

Yeman got 13 of its citizens released while 94 were still languishing there mainly because of the inability of its government to properly use its diplomatic influence.

“Pakistan has no such excuse like Yemen and enjoys good relations with the US,” he said.