President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright personally contacted Pakistan's president to win approval for the raid that nabbed the Pakistani charged in the 1993 shooting deaths of two people outside CIA headquarters, Time magazine reported.
Also, federal agents paid $3.5 million to informants to help catch Mir Aimal Kansi on June 15, according to Newsweek magazine.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 Monday, reported that agents paid $3.5 million to informants in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was not 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."
Kansi is held without bail in Fairfax County, Va., near Central Intelligence Agency headquarters, on 10 charges related to the rush-hour shootings of Jan. 25, 1993. Two CIA employees were shot dead as they sat in traffic waiting to turn into the CIA complex. Three people were wounded. Kan-si could be executed if convicted.
Senior U.S. officials as well as foreign diplomatic officials had said Pakistan was instrumental in helping the United States locate Kansi and in clearing the way for his arrest. Neither the State Department nor the Pakistan Embassy has confirmed the involvement.