Blacklisted US national Matthew Barrett deported

LAHORE: Blacklisted US citizen Matthew Craig Barrett was on Saturday deported after he was picked up from a rest house in Islamabad during a raid earlier this month.

Matthew was arrested on August 6 from a guest house despite being termed persona non grata and expelled in 2011.

His arrest over five years ago came a few days after US Navy Seals killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

This month the police and FIA raided a guest house the day he landed in the federal capital on information provided by the airport staff.

A case under the Foreigners Act and the Pakistan Customs Act was lodged against him.

Sources reported that Barrett was deported to the US through the Pakistan International Airlines flight 711.

Earlier this month, he was presented before a Rawalpindi court. During the hearing, Matthew maintained that both the cases filed against him in 2011 were dismissed by the Supreme Court and that he was granted a visa by the Pakistani consulate in Houston.

He claimed that the purpose of his visit was to explore the possibility of permanently moving here and meeting his in-laws.

His wife Banosha Khan filed a habeas corpus petition with the Islamabad High Court in May 2011 after his arrest which was dismissed.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar took notice of the incident this month and a woman official in Houston, in charge of issuance of visas, was summoned.