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Zaheer Ahmad, a Pakistani-American doctor charged with acting as a conduit for at least $4 million of ISI money to Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai to aggressively push the Pakistani line on Kashmir in the United States, has died in Islamabad.
According to reports, Ahmad, 63, died of brain haemorrhage on Friday. Although a US citizen, Ahmad had for many years been living in Pakistan, where he had founded a major hospital.
The FBI had charged both Fai and Ahmad last July. Fai’s Kashmiri American Council, a front organization for the ISI, pushed the Pakistani agenda on Kashmir for years for which Ahmad kept the ISI money flowing through a network of “straw donors” based in the US.
A statement from the Shifa International Hospital, of which he was the founder-president and CEO, said Ahmad was “an acclaimed visionary who abandoned a lucrative career in the United States and shifted to Islamabad to pay back to his motherland by establishing a tertiary care facility”.
It made no reference to the Kashmiri American Council case for which Ahmad was wanted in the US. There was no immediate word from the US Department of Justice on whether Ahmad’s death would have any impact in the ongoing case against Fai.
The US authorities announced the case against Fai and Ahmad on July 19 after the arrest of Fai, who lives in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. A week later, Fai was released on a $100,000 bond, but placed under house arrest with electronic monitoring. He was ordered at that time not to have any contact with his co-defendant (Ahmad), possible witnesses or representatives of a foreign government (read Pakistan) outside the presence of his attorney.
Fai and Ahmad were charged with failing to register as foreign agents with the Justice Department, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Fai was also charged with making false statements. A grand jury has been examining the case for the past couple of months.
According to reports, Ahmad, 63, died of brain haemorrhage on Friday. Although a US citizen, Ahmad had for many years been living in Pakistan, where he had founded a major hospital.
The FBI had charged both Fai and Ahmad last July. Fai’s Kashmiri American Council, a front organization for the ISI, pushed the Pakistani agenda on Kashmir for years for which Ahmad kept the ISI money flowing through a network of “straw donors” based in the US.
A statement from the Shifa International Hospital, of which he was the founder-president and CEO, said Ahmad was “an acclaimed visionary who abandoned a lucrative career in the United States and shifted to Islamabad to pay back to his motherland by establishing a tertiary care facility”.
It made no reference to the Kashmiri American Council case for which Ahmad was wanted in the US. There was no immediate word from the US Department of Justice on whether Ahmad’s death would have any impact in the ongoing case against Fai.
The US authorities announced the case against Fai and Ahmad on July 19 after the arrest of Fai, who lives in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. A week later, Fai was released on a $100,000 bond, but placed under house arrest with electronic monitoring. He was ordered at that time not to have any contact with his co-defendant (Ahmad), possible witnesses or representatives of a foreign government (read Pakistan) outside the presence of his attorney.
Fai and Ahmad were charged with failing to register as foreign agents with the Justice Department, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Fai was also charged with making false statements. A grand jury has been examining the case for the past couple of months.
