Afghan embassy’s name being used to claim liquor
This amount was seized from a warehouse by the Islamabad police last month. Officials from the Afghan embassy claim to have no knowledge of such a ‘third party’ and have filed an application to the additional district and session judges for the release of their consignment. The consignment contains more than 26,000 bottles of alcohol.
Though the application states that the entire consignment belongs to the Afghan consulate in Peshawar, the Afghan consulate in its later paperwork stated that they ordered only 9,000 bottles. “This created confusion which led to some officials wrongfully thinking that the entire consignment belonged to the consulate,” said an official of the Afghan embassy. This contradiction provoked the court to dismiss the plea of the Afghan embassy and the bottles remain in police custody.
The Islamabad police have been extra vigilant in checking for alcohol brought into the country through embassy immunity after they recovered over 26,000 bottles of imported liquor and beer from a warehouse allegedly owned by a female attaché of the Philippines embassy. While embassies enjoy diplomatic immunity in bringing alcohol into Pakistan, this is extended only up to a specific amount.
The Afghan embassy had come forward to claim the consignment was within the diplomatic concessions ensured by the Vienna Convention on diplomatic indemnity. The consulate had also provided documents of ownership to the police and applied for the release of the consignment in the court. However, the court rejected the consulate’s plea on the grounds that the application moved by a lawyer on the behalf of the Afghan consulate had claimed the entire consignment whereas the consulate in its later argument said they only owned 9,000 bottles.
The owner of the remaining 17000 bottles is not known as yet. The Afghan embassy claimed that the first application was not filed by their lawyer. According to an embassy official, when this lawyer was contacted, he said that he was hired by a lady called Bushra who acquired his services in the name Afghan embassy and that she paid him 50 per cent, Rs100,000, of the total fee the first time she met him. The embassy has denied knowing anyone by the name Bushra.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 22nd, 2010.
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