KARACHI: The Sindh High Court directed standing counsel for Pakistan Mehmood Alam on Tuesday to ascertain from the federal government where and under what laws it had detained various people, whose next of kin had invoked the jurisdiction of the courts. The direction was issued during the hearing of a miscellaneous application of a woman claiming to be the sister of Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Applicant Marium, quoting an August 23, 2005 statement made by Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, claimed that her brother was still in the custody of the government and prayed the court to order his production in court. In the main petition, Marium had challenged the detention of her other relatives by the law enforcement agencies. The SHC had, at an earlier hearing, called for comments from the federal government on Marium’s application. When the petition and the application came up for hearing before the bench comprising Justice Ghulam Rabani and Justice Munib Ahmed Khan, the standing counsel submitted that he had been continuously in correspondence with the ministries of defence and interior. The standing counsel submitted that he was hopeful that comments on the application would be supplied in a week.
Ghulam Qadir Jatoi, counsel for the applicant, contended that no clarification or denial of the news item had appeared in the national media in four months. He submitted that news of the application and its hearing had been prominently given coverage in the national media, but the minister or the foreign office had yet to offer a clarification. Justice Rabani, while interrupting the counsel, directed the standing counsel to seek not only comments on the application but to also find out from the government where and under what laws it had detained various people whose relatives had approached the court to ascertain their whereabouts and the reasons for their arrest and detention. The judge observed that when there were complaints of arrests from relatives, the government officials concerned could not simply answer that no agency had detained them. The bench, then allowed the standing counsel one week’s time, adjourned the hearing till December 21.
Based on a news story, applicant Marium, said Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was arrested from the house of army major Adil Qadoosi who was later convicted by a field court martial for harbouring the Al Qaeda operative. Marium alleged in her petition that the law enforcement agencies also detained her son Ammar alias Ali Abdul Aziz, an alleged Al Qaeda financier, two sons in-law Abdul Basit, Abdul Qadir and a nephew Abdul Karim Mehmood after the US invasion of Afghanistan on suspicion of links with Al Qaeda. The application was filed by her counsel Ghulam Qadir Jatoi, submitting that the foreign minister in a reported statement on August 23, 2005, published in newspapers, admitted that detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was in the custody of the government of Pakistan and had not been handed over to the US government.
The applicant stated that the conviction of six army personnel by a military court for having connections with extremists proved that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was not handed over to the US government. She further stated that Khalid Sheikh was still in the custody of the government and the authorities concerned were deliberately not producing him in a court.