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Hafiz Saeed set free
 A full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday accepted a habeas corpus petition, and ordered the government to release Jamaatud Dawa (JD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Col (r) Nazir Ahmad.In its short order, the LHC bench observed the government did not have proof to detain the petitioners for "preventive measures". "As far as the UN resolution is concerned, there is no matter before us about the vires and the government can act upon the same in letter and spirit if so advised. But relying on the same, the detention cannot be maintained, as it was even not desired thereby," it read. During the proceedings, petitioners' counsel AK Dogar had claimed the government's plea to detain his clients in the public interest was wrong. Members of the JD are good Muslims who follow the example of the holy Prophet (peace be upon him), he said, claiming it was part of a Western conspiracy to defame Islam. He said the government had made United Nations Security Council Resolution No 1267 its basis for detaining the petitioners, even though the resolution dealt with an arms embargo, freezing the guilty party's assets, and banning them from travelling abroad, not detention. Bad Muslims: Dogar submitted that the victims of the Marriott Hotel blast in Islamabad were bad Muslims who drank champagne. Defending the government, Deputy Attorney General Naveed Inayat Malik said Dogar's arguments collapsed under Article 10(3) of the constitution, which contended it was not necessary to show grounds for detention in the case of preventative detention. Saeed was put under house arrest in early December after a UN Security Council committee added him and the JD to a list of people and organisations linked to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. A spokesman for Saeed told Reuters the court order proved the JD charity was not linked to terrorism. Posted by: Fred 2009-06-03 |
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