Pakistani nabbed in Times Square probe ordered back to Pakistan

NEW YORK - A Pakistani man taken into custody in a lightening police sweep after the failed Times Square bombing attempt has been ordered back to Pakistan by a federal immigration judge, according to a court spokeswoman.. The order for Aftab Ali Khan'a deportation was passed by Judge Robin Feder, who issued a written opinion Thursday, said Kathryn Mattingly, spokeswoman for the federal Immigration Courts. Aftab Khan, 27, was one of the men picked up in the sweep earlier this month. He had a hearing last week in Boston Immigration Court, Mattingly said. Mary Attia, an attorney with the firm representing the man, said no decision has been made on whether to appeal. Aftab Khan was picked up May 13 at his Watertown, Massachusetts, apartment as federal investigators looked into whether he or his roommate may have been funneling cash to the suspected Times Square car bomber, Faisal Shahzad. The Department of Justice confirmed that Aftab Khan was ordered to leave and his attorney's office said he was denied "voluntary removal." Khan was being held on charges he stayed in the United States six months after his visa expired, but inside his apartment, federal immigrations agents said, Aftab Khan had Shahzad's phone number stored on a cell phone and scribbled on an envelope. Khan was sharing the apartment with his cousin Pir Khan, 43, a taxi driver, who was also arrested. Agents picked up Aftab Khan shortly before he was scheduled to board a flight returning to Pakistan. Their attorney said neither man had any involvement whatsoever with Shahzad and did not know him. "Evidence is really vivid and clear. I am really baffled by how people could expect two poor individuals to support such an event. Not from somebody who makes $10 for taxi rides, or somebody who works in a gas station," attorney Saher Macarius said. Both men were scheduled to return to Pakistan in June -- something their attorney said immigration officials were aware of. Macarius also denied that his clients, a cab driver and a gas station attendant, had anything to do with funneling money to Shahzad. "These people work very hard for their money. They are very shrewd on how to pass the money back to their families. If they don't trust the source that's getting their money back home they will not do it," Macarius said. During Aftab Khan's immigration hearing May 21 before Immigration Judge Feder, federal immigration agents said Khan had worked as a civilian on a U.S. Army base in Kuwait where he had dated an American female soldier from Colorado whom he hoped to marry. Authorities testified that the woman changed her mind but that Khan came to the U.S. on the fiance visa he had been granted and offered to pay her $5,000 to marry him anyway. When she refused, they testified, Aftab Khan eventually married another woman, Lila-Charlotte Fatou Sylla, 27, in a Cambridge civil ceremony on the day his visa expired last November. They testified Sylla admitted she had been paid between $1,500 and $2,000 to marry Aftab Khan. Aftab Khan, his uncle Pir Khan, and a third man named Mohammad Rahman were picked up when search warrants were executed during a sweep in the Northeast. They are accused of having been involved in an informal money-transfer network that provided cash to Shahzad. However, they may not have been aware of any terrorist plotting, authorities have said.

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