Imran Farooq murder: Suspect pleads against holding trial in jail

In petition filed at IHC, lawyer contends there was no security threat

ISLAMABAD: The case for the murder of Dr Imran Farooq seems to connected to England in more ways than one.

Apart from the fact that the former Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader was killed there, one of the suspects allegedly involved in his murder has now cited an English jurist’s quote in a bid to oppose his trial in jail.

Suspect Moazzam Ali, through his counsel Barrister Ali Saif, has petitioned the Islamabad High Court seeking its intervention in stopping an anti-terrorism court (ATC) from conducting his trial within Adiyala jail.



“Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards against improbity,” Saif quoted Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer, in his petition.

Saif argued that the principal of openness requires that a trial should be open to public and not conducted behind closed doors.

The petitioner has listed the secretary of the Interior Ministry, Islamabad Capital Territory chief commissioner, director general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the ATC judge as respondents in the petition.

The barrister pointed out that the chief commissioner had issued a notification on February 3, 2016, directing that Ali’s trial be held within jail premises.

Saif contended that the order had been issued without any cause or reason.

He added that no specific request in this regard had been made by the ATC nor was there any security risk either for the trial court or the suspects implicated in the case – Khalid Shamim, Mohsin Ali and Ali.

“There is nothing on record to show that the ATC has ever requested for a jail trial,” Saif noted in his petition.

Pointing to the history of the case, he said that no unpleasant incident had ever occurred for numerous times when the suspects were brought to the court for proceedings.

In addition, Saif argued that an open trial, where proceedings are open to public and observers, was essential for a fair trial.

Terming the notification to hold a trial in jail had been passed in a hasty and biased manner, the lawyer argued that it was, “against the principal of a fair trial.”

The petitioner has urged the court declare the notification as illegal.

Two suspects, Shamim and Syed Mohsin Ali, have already recorded their confessional statements before the magistrate alleging that the slain MQM leader was killed as he was a “potent threat to the leadership of MQM.” The third suspect, Ali, has yet to record his confessional statement in the case.

Farooq had been stabbed and bludgeoned to death near his apartment in Green Lane, Edgware, in September 2010.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 9^th, 2017.