It's not yet clear whether Rashid Rauf is alive or dead, but it is beginning to look as if he is just "dead": we shall see. That would be very convenient, perhaps. Neither dead men nor "dead" men can tell tales.

British-Pakistani terror suspect Rashid Rauf is still alive, his lawyer told the BBC on Monday, saying reports that he had died in a US missile attack in Pakistan were "fake."

The alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic jet bombing conspiracy was reportedly killed at the weekend in a US raid in a northwestern border district that is a known stronghold of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

"We don't believe that this story is true... It is a fake story," lawyer Hashmat Ali Habib told BBC radio, adding: "We still believe that my client, Rashid, is alive."

He noted that requests for Rauf's body to be returned to his family had not been answered. "This is a new technique of the government to dispose of the cases like Rashid or other missing people," he said.

AFP story.

See also:
http://www.septicisle.info/2008/11/weekend-links_23.html
http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/11/reports-from-pakistan-say-rashid-rauf.html
http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/01/inadequate-deception-impossible-plots.html
http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-pervez-musharraf-cant-tolerate.html
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Sources_August_Terror_Plot_Fiction_Underscoring_0918.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/
http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2006/09/ex-uk-intel-official-says-liquid.html
http://disruptive.org.uk/2008/09/11/liquid_bombs_3.html.