By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, the US based Kashmiri separatist leader accused of aiding a “decades-long” operation by Pakistan’s spy agency to influence US policy on Kashmir by funnelling money to members of Congress is expected to plead guilty Wednesday.
Fai, executive director of the Kashmiri American Council (KAC), was charged in July in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, bordering Washington with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lying to federal agents.
The plea agreement hearing is scheduled to take place before US District Judge Liam O’Grady, according to the docket.
Prosecutors said Fai helped move about $4 million from Pakistan’s government through the Washington-based KAC to sway US lawmakers with campaign contributions and other lobbying activities. The council, headed by Fai, is “actually run” by elements of the Pakistani government, including Pakistan’s military intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Justice Department said in a July statement announcing the charges.
Fai was charged along with Zaheer Ahmad, a US citizen who remains at large, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors separated Fai’s case from Ahmad’s Nov 23 and added a new charge of impeding the Internal Revenue Service.
An FBI affidavit said Fai received $500,000 to $700,000 a year from Pakistani intelligence, but never disclosed those links while serving as a supposedly independent lobbyist on Kashmir.
A cooperating witness, it said, told the FBI that 80 percent of Fai’s efforts were specifically dictated to him by the ISI.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])