THREE PLEAD NOT GUILTY IN US OVER DRUGS-FOR-WEAPONS SCHEME

SAN DIEGO, California -- Two Pakistanis and an Indian-born US citizen
pleaded not guilty yesterday to peddling heroin and hashish to buy Stinger
missiles for the al-Qaeda terror network.

The men denied the charges when they appeared in court in the San Diego for
the first time following their extradition from Hong Kong where they were
arrested last September in a US-led police swoop.

They are charged with selling 600 kg of heroin and five tonnes of hashish
to buy shoulder-fired Stingers that were to be resold to the masterminds of
the September 11, 2001 terror strikes on US targets.

Magistrate Judge Leo Pappas ordered the trio - Pakistanis Syed Mustajab
Shah, 54, and Muhammed Abid Afridi, 29, and 55-year-old Ilyas Ali -
remanded in custody pending a detention hearing next Wednesday.

The men should remain behind bars because of a "risk of flight and danger
to the community," prosecutor Todd Robinson told the judge.

The three were flown into the United States from Hong Kong on a US
government plane late yesterday, officials said here.

They were each charged with three counts, including conspiracy to peddle
drugs, conspiracy to import them into the United States and attempting and
conspiring to lend material support and resources to al-Qaeda.

The suspects were arrested in Hong Kong in an undercover sting operation
led by US Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, and agreed in January to
be extradited for trial.

If convicted, they could face up to life in prison.

The men allegedly "intended to deliver the Stinger missile systems to a
designated foreign terrorist organisation, namely the al-Qaeda," said a
summary of the court proceedings provided by the Hong Kong Justice Department.

Clad in orange jail-style jumpsuits, the men remained silent during the
hearing.

The search for an Urdu interpreter to translate for one of the Pakistanis
delayed the proceeding for an hour.

According to a four page indictment, Ali met with an undercover law
enforcement agent near San Diego on April 11 last year to discuss a
narcotics sale.

The men then met again with undercover law enforcement officers in Hong
Kong on September 16 to discuss the massive drugs transaction that would
help finance four Stinger missiles they wanted from the undercover agents.

Two days later, the men told the undercover officers they would be able to
resell the missiles to Afghanistan's fallen Taliban regime or al-Qaeda,
which they considered to be the same thing, according to the complaint.

But Ali, the alleged mastermind of the plot, claimed he was innocent,
telling Hong Kong's South China Morning Post in an interview in January
that he had "absolutely no links to any terror network".

Since the beginning of the US-led campaign against terrorism in
Afghanistan, the US military has warned several times of the risks Stingers
pose to both military and commercial aircraft.