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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistani court orders spy agency to explain deaths in custody |
| 2012-01-31 |
| The Pakistani Supreme Court has ordered an inquiry into the case of the alleged murder of four prisoners under detention of the military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), throwing a spotlight on the secretive agency. Eleven people were arrested by the ISI in 2007 for their alleged role in a failed assassination attempt on the former military chief and president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, in 2003. In 2010, an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi freed them due to a lack of evidence. On May 29, 2010, these people were again taken into custody by the ISI. This time the ISI officials claimed these people were linked to militant Taliban groups and were involved in terrorist activities in the country's restive tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. In the past six months, four out of these 11 men, aged between 20 and 30 - Muhammad Aamir, Tehseen Allah, Syed al-Arab and Abdul Suboor - have been mysteriously found dead during ISI detention. The ISI said these people died due to ailments. On Monday, Pakistan's highest court ordered an investigation into these alleged murders and asked the ISI to bring the remaining detainees to the court on February 9, acting on the request of the relatives of the deceased. The court also asked the military intelligence agencies to submit written explanations about the deaths. Advocate Tariq Asad, a lawyer representing the men's families, told Shakoor Rahim, Deutsche Welle's correspondent in Islamabad, that it was "abnormal for such young men to die like this in the hospital." He said he believed the men were killed and that he would file a murder case accordingly. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 Did they ever manage to find the folks who bumped Bhutto? No? How curious. |
| Posted by: mojo 2012-01-31 10:59 |