Tracing missing persons: Adiala prisoners kept in detention, agencies admit

Say prisoners shifted after they could not be tried under the Army Act.

ISLAMABAD:

In a reply submitted in the Supreme Court on Tuesday through their counsel, security agencies acknowledged that the 11 Adiala jail missing persons were kept in internment centres after the agencies were advised that they could not be tried under the Army Act, 1952.

The eleven missing were ‘arrested after a convoy was ambushed in the operational area,’ they said. The detainees were subsequently shifted to internment centres under the Actions (In Aid of Civil Power) Regulation, 2011, they stated.

What took the agencies more than a year to determine that the detainees could not be tried under the army act?

“The process of collecting evidence to make a case for their trial consumed more than the normal time required for such an exercise,” the counsel maintained.

The reply submitted in the court, however, made no mention of the four of the eleven missing persons who allegedly died in the agencies’ custody. There was also no statement on exactly when the detainees were shifted to the internment centres.

To the second part of the court’s order on alleged non-compliance of its directions, the security agencies cited ‘adverse weather conditions’, as the reason for failing to present the missing persons before the court on the first hearing, on February 10.

“There was no disobedience of the court order dated 30-01-2012 and the internees from Parachinar were brought despite risking human lives, including the pilots who operated in adverse weather and hostile security conditions,” the counsel claimed.

“Snow and poor visibility in and around Parachinar” caused the half-an-hour delay in their production before the court as they arrived in Islamabad at 6 pm, while the court, at 5:30 pm, had already fixed another date (February 13) for their appearance, the reply said.

Complying with court orders, the seven internees were brought to Islamabad on the first date of the hearing, the reply insisted.

“The army leadership, including the heads of the agencies have honoured and implemented the orders passed by this apex court,” the reply concluded.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 29^th, 2012.