BEIJING, May 6 (Reuters) - Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Thursday, May 6, he thought it unlikely that a Pakistani-American arrested over a failed plot to bomb New York's Times Square had acted alone.
Faisal Shahzad, 30, was arrested on Monday night after he was removed from an Emirates plane at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport that was about to depart for Dubai. He had been on his way back to Pakistan.
"According to the available information, he says it was his individual act. I would not tend to believe that," Malik told Reuters in an interview during a visit to the Chinese capital.
"We need to know whether he was framed, whether he was used by somebody…is he part of a gang of terrorists, we need to know the answer to all those questions."
Malik said that Pakistan had not yet received a formal request for help from the United States, but was ready to give them "every help, full support" to bring the culprits to justice.
Pakistan’s security officials had started investigating the suspect, son of a retired Pakistani air vice-marshal, as soon as his name became public, he added.
"When we heard through the media (the name) Faisal Shahzad, we started our identifying process, and we identified the entire family, their associates, their bank accounts, their telephone numbers, and of course in the meantime got in touch with the U.S. administration," Malik said.
But asked about a report that the United States had asked to interview Shahzad’s parents, Malik said that when he left Pakistan on Wednesday evening, no such request had been received.
He declined to comment on possible ties between Shahzad and militant groups in Pakistan without more information about the interrogation or details of charges against the suspect.
"I will be able to come forward and give our view only once we have seen the interrogation report in total," he said, but he hinted that there was likely some militant involvement.
"Making a bomb is not an easy game, so this means there is something more than what we are seeing at present."
U.S. prosecutors said Shahzad had admitted to receiving bomb-making training in a Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan. A law enforcement source said investigators believed the Pakistani Taliban financed that training.
Shahzad, who was born in Pakistan and became a U.S. citizen last year, has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and trying to kill and maim people within the United States as well as other counts.
