Imran Farooq. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan made it clear that Islamabad has no plan of making any formal request to the British government either to take legal course or to extradite London-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Altaf Hussain.
“We’ve no such mind to ask UK either to extradite the MQM leader or to take legal action [against him],” Chaudhry Nisar told Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad Khan in a phone call on Thursday.
A senior official familiar with content of the telephonic discussion told The Express Tribune that the minister assured the governor that “there will be no political victimisation in the Dr Imran Farooq murder case”.
The development came days after the government asked the UK government to hand over fugitive Baloch separatists and others stoking terror in the country. The Pakistani government would hand over the suspects involved in the Dr Farooq murder case to Scotland Yard in exchange for fugitive persons, officials said.
“This [Imran Farooq] is an important case but the government has never had any intention to target political leaders of the MQM in such cases,” according to the official.
During the conversation, Nisar told Ebad that it was Pakistan’s international obligation to assist the UK government in the Imran Farooq murder probe, informed officials said.
The interior minister discussed his viewpoints during a meeting with top British diplomat in Pakistan Philip Barton who sought access to the suspected killers of Imran Farooq, they added. The minister also informed the governor Sindh that he has not handed over any dossier against any MQM leader to the British diplomat, they stated.
Taking up matter of recent FIR registered against Altaf Hussain on delivering speech against law enforcement agencies who raided his party’s headquarters Nine-Zero, the interior minister discussed Altaf Hussain’s extradition from UK with the British high commissioner last month.
Meanwhile, a senior legislator in Islamabad, who does not want to be named, said Pakistan has no such extradition treaty with the UK government. “Even, there is no such formal treaty between Islamabad and London, the British government under Section 194 of the UK Extradition Act 2003 can allow for special ‘ad hoc’ extradition arrangements.”
On April 13, the interior minister claimed that a facilitator of Farooq’s murderers, Moazzam Ali, had been arrested.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 17th, 2015.
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