ISLAMABAD: A lawyer for seven terror suspects, whose illegal detention has been investigated by Pakistan’s top court, yesterday said tribal officials had sentenced them to up to 14 years in prison.
It was the latest dramatic twist in a case that has highlighted the illegal detention of hundreds of terror suspects in a country where the courts have failed to make any high-level convictions.
The seven were arrested in November 2007 but acquitted in May 2010.
Shortly afterwards they disappeared and their families petitioned the Supreme Court to track down their whereabouts.
The decision to take up the case is seen as a challenge to perceptions that the country’s security services operate above the law. But the men are still incarcerated more than 15 months after the Supreme Court intervened.
In February 2012 they were brought before the court in poor health, barely able to stand or talk.
Yesterday they were in court again, handcuffed but in good health, where their lawyer told the judge that on May 2 they were handed jail terms by tribal authorities — five for 14 years and two for five years. Each had also been fined 100,000 rupees ($1,000), Tariq Asad said.
“They were standing on a veranda on May 2 and a tribal official in lower Orakzai agency (district) came and told them of their jail sentences without holding any trial,” Asad said. The semi-autonomous tribal belt in the northwest operates a tribal justice system outside the mainstream judiciary.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry demanded that authorities submit the record of the trials at the next hearing on May 20. “Authorities should explain when their trials were held. Was the due process followed and the trials held in a fair manner?” Chaudhry said.
Asad said after the hearing that the court should have ordered his clients’ release. All suspects have pleaded innocence.
The case concerned a group of 11 men but the court was told last year that four had died.
Amnesty International says the military had arbitrarily detained thousands for long periods with little or no access to due process.
Attorney General Irfan Qadir in January said security agencies are holding at least 700 people without trial in connection with terror charges. He said none of the suspects could be freed until military operations end in the tribal belt, and declined to say how long they had been in custody.
Troops have been fighting Islamist militants in border areas with Afghanistan since 2002 with no end in sight. Agencies
