SANTIAGO, Chile — Muhammad Saif ur Rehman Khan said he had traveled from his native Pakistan to Santiago to learn Spanish and work in a hotel. But five months after his arrival, Mr. Khan finds himself under investigation as a terrorism suspect, after traces of a rarely used explosive were discovered on his belongings when he visited the American Embassy.

Many Chileans have bristled at the severity of the response by the authorities here, who twice sent Mr. Kahn to jail after invoking a seldom used antiterrorism law. His arrest has also stirred concerns in Chile about racial profiling by the United States.

“What was their objective — just to give a bad name to the Muslims?” Mr. Kahn said as he was released from jail early this month. “They made my mother cry. They made my family in stress. For what?”

Mr. Khan’s troubles began when he went to the American Embassy on May 10. An embassy official had summoned him there after the State Department received what one of its officials said was “adverse information” about Mr. Khan. He was taken to a secure room where, he said, he was locked in and subjected to a strip search, while his belongings were tested for explosives.

Chilean investigators said they had not yet found any evidence tying Mr. Khan to radical groups or terrorist plots. Yet a vexing fact remains: No one, including Mr. Khan, has been able to explain why embassy officials and the Chilean police found traces of the explosive tetryl on his cellphone, documents, a laptop and several items of clothing. Nor have American officials said what led them to call him to the embassy.

That has made the authorities especially uneasy in a country with little experience with bombing plots or conflicts in the Middle East, one that has only about 3,000 Muslim citizens.

Chilean officials have said their actions, including closing court hearings in Mr. Khan’s case to the public, were necessary.

“As a society we have the right to know why a person that has had contact with explosives is in our country,” Rodrigo Hinzpeter, Chile’s interior minister, said in a television interview. “This investigation has to run its course.”

Mr. Khan is now free after prosecutors decided not to appeal his latest release. But he cannot leave Chile until the investigation is completed.

Under Chilean law, prosecutors have 120 days from May 15 to investigate Mr. Khan for potentially violating a law that prohibits the possession of explosive substances. If convicted, he could receive a maximum sentence of 540 days, although as a first-time offender he would probably not have to serve jail time, an official in the Chilean prosecutor’s office said.

Mr. Khan, 28, studied hotel management in Islamabad, Pakistan, and in Britain. He said a former teacher had recommended that he go to Chile to study Spanish and work in a hotel.

Before traveling to Chile, he used an American visa to visit a brother in the United States. They went on a road trip through Texas.

After arriving in Santiago, he got a room in a boarding house and enrolled in a six-week language course. After completing the course, he began working at the front desk of a hotel. He started dating a Chilean woman and “was living a normal life,” he said in an interview.

Then on the afternoon of May 7 he received a phone call from an official at the American Embassy requesting that he come in to verify the name on his passport, he said.

That same day, Mr. Khan said, he had just finished his prayers at the local mosque in Santiago when several people approached him and asked if he spoke English. He said yes, and they said they were Americans visiting the mosque. “They talked about religion,” Mr. Khan said.

Three days later Mr. Khan went to the embassy, as requested. He handed in his passport and cellphone. William Whitaker, an embassy official, escorted him to a special room on the embassy grounds, where he asked if he could photocopy Mr. Khan’s documents. He left with them, saying he would return in 15 minutes.

A half hour passed and Mr. Khan checked the door and realized that it was locked. An hour later, he said, he was told over an intercom to take off his shoes, strip down to his underwear and show each clothing item to a security camera.

He was eventually permitted to dress, and Chilean police officers entered the room with a dog. They quickly tested his hands.

The tests of his hands and clothing were negative, a prosecutor said later in court. But the documents and Mr. Khan’s cellphone tested positive for tetryl, and the officers arrested him.

Gabriel Carrión, a public defender representing Mr. Khan, suggested that embassy officials might have manipulated the documents and the cellphone.

Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, declined to comment. “We believe these allegations will be best addressed by the Chilean courts and not argued in the media,” he said.

The Chilean police sent two teams to examine Mr. Khan’s room at the boarding house with bomb-testing equipment. The first team found no sign of explosives. The second found traces of tetryl on seven items of clothing, including a necktie and a small suitcase. A laptop also tested positive, an official in the prosecutor’s office said.

Mr. Carrión said Mr. Khan had been living in the room for only about 10 days. The previous resident, called the Egyptian by the Chilean press, had occupied the room since late February.

That timing could be important because tetryl residue can linger on clothing for years, according to explosives experts in Chile and the United States.

Tetryl is not made in Chile, is not used commercially anywhere in the world and is hard to make, experts said.

Chris Ronay, president of the Institute of Makers of Explosives, said he thought Mr. Khan could have gotten tetryl on his belongings only if he had been around old military ordnance, storage areas or places where old ordnance had been detonated.

Mr. Khan said he had never been on a military installation.

Tetryl is distinct from other explosives because it generates a lot of powder when it explodes, said Carlos Orlandi, president of the Association of Chilean Explosives Engineers. “It is very difficult for someone who has touched this substance one or two times to have traces on his belongings,” Mr. Orlandi said.

While Mr. Khan could not explain how tetryl had gotten on his belongings, he maintained that he had done nothing wrong. With all that has happened, he said the experience had not colored his perception of the United States. “I love the American way of life,” he said.

“There are a lot of Spanish speakers in the United States, and I had hoped that after my experience in Chile I could find work there,” Mr. Khan said. “But that will never happen now.”

Aaron Nelsen contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/wo...s/19chile.html

so sorry after readin it...

wt to say excpt tht its juz a part of International propaganda...agnst muslimz..

This is what happened:

An interesting video - Must watch....

U.S. Department of State – Daily Press Briefing by Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley about innocent M. Saif-ur-Rehman Khan