FIA wants PPP plea against US blogger dismissed

Islamabad sessions court seeks Cynthia Ritchie’s reply on June 13

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday asked an Islamabad sessions court to dismiss a plea against US blogger Cynthia Ritchie for her slanderous tweets about former prime minister Benazir Bhutto contending that the petitioner, PPP Islamabad President Shakeel Abbasi, was not an affected party.

However, Additional Sessions Judge Atta Rabbani issued a notice to Cynthia seeking her response by June 13.

The FIA, in its written response to the court, argued that according to its rules, only the aggrieved party -- the targeted victim or their guardian -- could lodge such a complaint with the agency.

It maintained that when Abbasi wanted to file a complaint, the agency had made it clear to him that he could not do so as he was not the affected party of Cynthia’s allegations.

Riasat Ali Azad, the counsel for the petitioner, contended that the every PPP activist was affected by the American’s claims.

The court issued notices to Cynthia and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) again seeking their replies on the petition.

The judge also accepted PTA’s appeal seeking more time to submit its reply which was sought earlier by the court.

The PTA director general law told the judge that the authority had not received the court’s notice earlier. He added that he had appeared before the court after coming across media reports on the matter.

The court told him that he would have to file a reply as the PTA was a respondent in the petition.

Cynthia has hired the services of Advocate Nasir Azeem Khan to represent her in the case.

The PPP Islamabad president has accused Cynthia of running a defamatory campaign against the slain party chairperson on social media. The party had also wanted the FIA and the PTA to remove the tweets and lodge a case against the blogger.

The petitioner maintained that the FIA and the PTA did not take any action and sought the court’s direction to them to take action on the matter.

Separately, PPP leader Senator Rehman Malik served another defamation notice to Cynthia, who has accused him of raping her.

Malik, who is the chairman of the Senate standing committee on interior and a former interior minister, has already filed a Rs500 million defamation suit against the US blogger through his lawyer in the Supreme Court.

The second defamation notice to Cynthia has been sent for repeating her allegation while speaking on TV channels.

It read that Cynthia appeared on two talks shows on different private TV channels on June 7 and levelled “false, bogus and malicious allegations of rape” against Malik.

“Due to the levelling, publication and circulation of the false, frivolous and baseless allegation, the reputation of my client has adversely suffered both at the national and international level. He has a right to redeem his position,” Malik’s lawyer Advocate Abdur Rehman Bajwa wrote in the notice.

“Therefore my client is constrained to demand from you as token damages, an amount of Rs50 billion in addition to prompt withdrawal of the allegation in the same manner in which it was released and posted on social, print and electronic media, within 15 days of receipt of this legal notice besides an unqualified apology from you in this regard,” the notice further read.

Cynthia had alleged on Friday that she was raped by Malik in 2011 when he was the interior minister and also accused former federal minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin and ex-prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani of “physically manhandling” her when Gilani was staying at the “President’s House” and the PPP was in power.