LAHORE, 23 February 2003 — Pakistani doctor Ahmad Jaweed Khawaja, who was arrested by the Pakistani police along with eight members of his family last December, has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, his family say.

According Nadeem Khawaja, the doctor’s brother, more than two hundred Pakistani police along with FBI officers stormed the family house in Lahore, where they seized $100,000. Pakistani police claim the money is evidence of the Bin Laden connection.

Pakistani sources say police had been looking for the plastic surgeon who altered Bin Laden’s appearance to make him unrecognizable, allowing him to escape from Afghanistan.

In interview with Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News, Nadeem Khawaja denied any relationship with Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

“I don’t know where they got the information,” he said. “I think you should ask the people who spread such false rumors. Nobody in our family ever met Bin Laden.”

Khawaja is adamant that the family’s trips to Afghanistan during the armed resistance against Soviet occupation were purely humanitarian in nature, and accusations that they treated and harbored Al-Qaeda members were pure fabrication.

“These charges are ridiculous. Unless you call helping the poor and needy evidence,” he fumed.

“My brother was helping the poor. He was treating people who wouldn’t have been able to afford a doctor. It was not my brother’s job to question them about their political affiliations, and he wasn’t going to establish everyone’s identity,” he added.

He dismisses claims by Pakistan’s Interior Minister that there is evidence of a terrorist connection.

“He can say whatever he wants. Let him show me the evidence. The $100 thousand they found in the house proves nothing,” he said.

“We have had our own business for many years, as everyone in Lahore knows. It’s perfectly normal for us to have that kind of money in the house.” According to Khawaja, when police and FBI agents stormed the house on Dec. 18 last year, the family, who were confused and frightened, fired one warning shot in the air.

However, reports that there had been a gun battle he calls “ridiculous”.

“We thought they were robbers,” he explained. “They were wearing civilian clothes, and they hit the guard over the head. How were we supposed to know they were police?”

“As soon as we found out who they were, we opened the doors,” he added. “We couldn’t believe how many of them there were.”

“We were interrogated by two Americans who I think were FBI. They treated us very badly. I told them I had been to Afghanistan during the jihad against the Russians and never went back,” Khawaja said.

His son Hassan, a high school student, claimed he was tortured by the Pakistani police and the FBI threatened to take him and his family to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba (where the Al-Qaeda prisoners are held) if he did not confess his relationship with Al-Qaeda. His wife obtained an order for his release from the Pakistan Supreme Court. “In the end they fingerprinted me and let me go,” Khawaja said.