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27 April 2015

Pakistan Helped Weinstein Family Arrange Ransom three years before he was killed in a botched U.S. drone strike.

APRIL 24, 2015 

The family of missing U.S. aid worker Warren Weinstein worked with the government of Pakistan to relay ransom money to the group holding the missing aid worker and maintained ongoing communications with Islamabad in the years between his capture in Lahore and his death in an errant American drone strike in January, according to people familiar with the interactions.

Islamabad’s role in the Weinstein case, which hasn’t previously been reported, raises new questions about Pakistan’s ties to the militants who have long used their country to plan attacks abroad. In this case, Pakistani officials knew enough about Weinstein’s captors to help ensure the money found its way into the militants’ hands but was unwilling or incapable of rescuing him themselves.

The Weinsteins had long thought they had a way of bringing home their loved one, who was kidnapped in the Pakistani city of Lahore in 2011. Instead, President Barack Obama called them Wednesday to disclose that Weinstein had been killed in a botched mission that also took the life of Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto.

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