Feds Paid $3.5 Million To Nab Slaying Suspect

Federal agents paid $3.5 million to informants to help catch the Pakistani accused in the 1993 shootings outside CIA headquarters that left two dead, according to Newsweek magazine.

And a Time magazine report said President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright personally contacted Pakistan’s president to win approval for the June 15 operation that resulted in Mir Aimal Kansi’s arrest at a hotel in central Pakistan.

The State Department had offered a $2 million reward for help in locating Kansi.

FBI and CIA officials indicated they used their regular budgets for informants to provide prompt payments and develop information on Kansi’s whereabouts.

Newsweek, in editions on newsstands today, reported agents paid $3.5 million to informants in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It wasn’t clear if the State Department reward was paid or how much money came from each agency.

In another report, U.S. News & World Report said Afghan bodyguards hired by Kansi’s family to protect him were paid off.

In this week’s editions, the magazine quoted a source familiar with the capture as saying the guards “participated in betraying him for money.”