Anti-Taliban leader freed after mistaken arrest

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- A federal court ordered the release of an Afghan man Wednesday after the government admitted he was arrested by mistake Sunday when his flight arrived in the United States.

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Sources said the man jailed on bank fraud charges, Muhammed Arif, is a prominent anti-Taliban leader supporting U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.

Arif had just returned from a crucial meeting of exiled Afghan leaders in Rome, three sources close to Arif told CNN, when FBI agents boarded the plane at Washington Dulles International Airport and took him into custody.

Reports from Rome said the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance fighters reached agreement with 86-year-old exiled Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah to form an anti-Taliban coalition.

Members of the U.S. Congress participated in the meetings.

A federal prosecutor told U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Poretz in a courtroom here that investigators determined the Mohammad Arif in custody was not the same Mohammad Arif wanted for bank fraud in Philadelphia.

The prosecutor said investigators compared bank surveillance photos with the man they arrested and concluded they did not match.

The U.S. attorney's office would not comment on the case. An FBI spokesman dismissed it as a routine case of mistaken identity.

According to an arrest warrant from the federal Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a man named Mohammed Arif fraudulently cashed more than $86,000 in checks in 1994.

Friends and family members of the Mohammed Arif released Wednesday said the person federal authorities are trying to find is from Pakistan, and that he shares not only the same name but also the same date of birth with the Afghan man.

Associates of the Arif from Afghanistan said he and his wife and eight children were granted political asylum in the United States following the overthrow of the Kabul government by the Taliban.

Arif was a chief of staff for the Cabinet in the ousted government.

Neither Arif's friends in Washington's Afghan community nor his attorney, Clare Cherkasky, would discuss his activities or his role in the Rome meetings.

They said U.S. officials asked Arif not to talk about the sensitive matters with which he is dealing.