1 Police have arrested a South African student with ties to the suspected mastermind of the bombing of New York's World Trade Center, reports published Friday said.
2 Istiaque Parker, a student at the Islamic University in Islamabad, brought the reputed terrorist, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the Su-Casa Guest House on Monday and the two went out for coffee in the evening, hotel manager Musawar Qazi told The Associated Press.
3 On Tuesday morning, about 10 Pakistani and U.S. law enforcement officials burst into the hotel, raced up the stairs and arrested Yousef in Room 16, a small, clean room with two single beds.
4 Yousef was extradited to New York and pleaded innocent Thursday to charges he plotted and helped carry out the Feb. 26, 1993, bombing in New York's financial district. The explosion killed six people, injured more than 1,000 others were and caused dlrs 500 million in damage.
5 Parker was picked up shortly after Yousef's arrest, said The News, an English-language daily.
6 Parker lived in an apartment just across the street from the guest house, a two-story, whitewashed home on a quiet residential street in Islamabad, Qazi said.
7 Yousef, believed to be an Iraqi, had a false Pakistani identity card and registered under the alias Ali Mohammed, said Qazi.
8 The law enforcement officials blindfolded Yousef, tied his hands and legs with rope and dragged him away before he could even put on shoes or socks, Qazi said.
9 'It was like a hurricane. They stormed in and left in less than five minutes,' said Khalid Sheikh, a guest at the hotel.
10 According to Sheikh, Yousef shouted, 'Why are you holding me?' and 'I'm innocent, I'm innocent.'
11 U.S. and Pakistani authorities examined Yousef's two suitcases for hours before taking them away, said Qazi.
12 Pakistan's interior minister, Nasirullah Babar, said one of Yousef's two suitcases contained explosives hidden inside two toy cars as well as chemicals used to make bombs.
13 Pakistan police spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment on Parker. Government offices were closed Friday, the traditional weekend day in Muslim Pakistan.
14 Senior Pakistani officials gave conflicting accounts of how Yousef's case was handled and many of the details, including whether Yousef was using Pakistani or Iraqi travel documents, remain unclear.
15 The United States had offered a dlrs 2 million reward for information leading to Yousef's conviction, and government officials in Washington said they acted on a tip provided by a confidential informant in Pakistan.
16 But Babar said Pakistani investigators had been tailing Yousef since he entered the country on Sunday from Bangkok, Thailand, and arrested him once they confirmed his identity.
17 The News, without citing sources, said Yousef had not entered the country recently and had spend most of the past two years in Pakistan.

Police have arrested a South African student with ties to the suspected mastermind of the bombing of New York ' s World Trade Center , reports published Friday said .
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