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Journalism of Courage
China and Pakistan have denied claims that Chinese military engineers were given access to the wreckage of the US stealth helicopter destroyed in the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
China has rejected foreign media reports that Pakistan had allowed Chinese engineers to take photographs of the wreckage of a US Stealth helicopter crashed during the Osama bin Laden raid.
“This report is baseless and preposterous,” Fox News quoted China’s Defence Ministry,as saying in a one-line statement in its first public response in this regard.
The United States suspects that Pakistan shared the technology with China in retaliation against its May 2 unilateral raid that killed the then al Qaeda chief on Pakistani soil,humiliating Islamabad.
One of the modified Black Hawk helicopters had crashed during the midnight raid by US Navy Seals.
The Financial Times had cited unnamed US intelligence sources,as saying that Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had allowed Chinese experts to take photographs of the wreckage and samples of its outer skin that was designed to evade radars.
People close to the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency have told the FT that the Chinese were in fact given access to the helicopter, The Nation quoted the Financial Times,as saying in its report.
The New York Times also published a similar report,saying that while the Navy SEALs destroyed most of the helicopter to protect the technology,the tail section remained mostly intact,and it was that area that the Chinese engineers examined.
The report of Chinese access comes as Pakistan and the United States are trying to improve relations badly damaged by the covert operation.
