Justice Qazi Faez Isa has received death threat, says wife

According to Sarina Isa, a person in a video says that her husband should be shot publicly

ISLAMABAD: Days after the Supreme Court quashed a presidential reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa, his wife Sarina Isa has said that her husband received a death threat via a video in which the intimidator can be heard saying: "Isa should be shot publicly."

In an application to register a first information report (FIR) in Islamabad's Secretariat Police Station, Sarina said that the person threatening Justice Isa said that whoever is caught in embezzlement, whether it be Faez Isa or anyone else, should be executed through a firing squad.

Only those who indulge in such activities must be hanged and the entire city should be invited to watch it, the person in the video said according to Justice Isa's wife.

She quoted the person in the video who said that the people should be asked to come to Fawara Chowk [in Rawalpindi] to see "someone was being hanged".



Sarina also said that many powerful people were not happy with her husband and she suspected the death threat was in continuation of what they have been facing.

On Friday, the top court had quashed the presidential reference filed against Justice Isa as well as the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) proceedings that were started on the basis of the reference.

A ten-judge full court had issued the verdict after hearing for over six months a slew of petitions filed against the reference that claimed that Justice Isa had committed misconduct by not disclosing his family members properties in the United Kingdom in his wealth statement.

“Reference No 1 of 2019 is declared to be of no legal effect whatsoever and stands quashed, and in consequence, thereof the proceedings pending in the SJC against the petitioner [Justice Isa] including the show-cause notice dated 17.07.2019 issued to him stand abated,” said a short order.

In the split verdict, announced by the presiding judge Umar Ata Bandial, seven out of the ten judges referred the matter to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for initiating tax proceedings against Justice Isa’s spouse and children for not disclosing their UK properties to the tax authorities while filing their returns.

However, three judges, while quashing the reference, did not endorse the majority view: referring the matter to the FBR. Out of the three judges, Justice Yahya Afridi dismissed Justice Isa’s petition but allowed superior bars petitions against the reference.

Justice Isa's wife, in the application, said that a complaint was submitted by a person named Abdul Waheed Dogar against her husband. "My husband asked who Abdul Waheed Dogar is but no one in the government disclosed that for whom Abdul  Waheed Dogar worked," she said, claiming that Special Assistant to the PM on Accountability Shahzad Akbar has met Dogar, urging the police officials to investigate the whereabouts of Dogar, who, according to her, was being used by "some very powerful people."

"I suspect that whoever ordered the journalist Mr Ahmed Noorani to be beaten up is the real mastermind and the person who wants to eliminate my husband," she alleged.

She urged the police officials to arrest those "powerful people" who wanted to get rid of Justice Isa, calling it the "worst kind of terrorism".