Uzair Paracha
- Name: Uzair Paracha
- Nationality: Pakistan
- Residence: USA/Pakistan
- Marital Status: Single
- Date of Arrest: 2-20-2001
- Place of Arrest: New York
- Currently Held: Colorado
Background
Uzair Paracha, born in 1980, is the eldest son of Saifullah and Farhat Paracha.
The son of a successful businessman and prominent social activist, he spent his formative years in America, but returned with his family to settle in Pakistan in the mid-’80’s.
Following his graduation from Karachi’s Institute of Business Administration, with a major in Marketing, he joined his father in the family business. Uzair travelled to the US in February 2003, as part of one business venture they embarked upon, in order to market quality apartments in Karachi to the Pakistani community in America. He was based in New York City, where he stayed with extended family.
On March 28th 2003, less than two months since his arrival, he was arrested by FBI agents at his office and was subsequently taken to the Metropolitan Detention Centre, Manhattan, where he has been detained since. After his bail hearing was denied in August, he was indicted on five counts, accused of providing material support to al- Qaeda. His lawyers, Anthony Ricco and Edward Wilford deny that Uzair has ever been to a terrorist training camp and state that he will put in a plea of “not guilty” to all charges.
Ricco said Uzair was “neither a chemist, nor a soldier” and described his client as intelligent but extremely naive, which his lawyer said allowed him to be used: “Bright as he is, he wasn’t able to perceive the way in which he was being manipulated”.
In the time that he has been detained, his father, Saifullah, has been kidnapped by the U. S. government and is currently in their custody at Guantanamo Bay.
Uzair Paracha has been allowed only one visit from extended family, in the first four months of his detention. For the first time after eight months, he spoke to his mother, Farhat, on October 12th 2003. Since then he has been allowed one 15-minute phone call per month to his family in Pakistan, although they have only received one other call. A close relative has expressed concerns about the effect it is having on his psychological health, confiding that Uzair’s morale has been very low recently.
Just because he is being detained in the US does not mean that he’s safe from mistreatment. In fact, while still in the Metropolitan Correctional Center he was praying in his cell and the guard called him. He couldn’t answer because he was in the middle of Salat. (prayer)….and they took it as a sign of opposition. So they restricted his visits and phone calls for 6 months. They always made sure that his phone calls were never more than 15 minutes but they would never make sure that he got the phone call every month. After his conviction, he was shifted to Colorado, he was allowed to make a half an hour phone call every month. (from Zahra, his sister) Religious abuse is rampant toward the detainees no matter where they are interned. Former Chaplain James Yee talks about that in his book, “For God and Country.”
He was convicted in November of 2005 and was given the minimum of 30 years by the Judge in July 2006. He refused Plea bargaining even though they kept trying to convince him to take it, but he insisted that he was innocent. The jury only took 5 hours to convict him.
His lawyer, Wilford commented, “We want everyone to know, we want the world to know, and the world will know, at his trial, what kind of individual he is. He is a good person at heart”.
(From Free Parachas)
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Hamza Jamali: “I knew Uzair Pracha when we were both in IBA and I can say with confidence he is no terrorist.” Samar: “The US Govt has made a mistake yet again. This guy is an IBA Grad for heaven’s sake! He had the world at his feet. why would he forfeit it for some lousy organization like Al-Qaeda?” |
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