Court informed: 7 Adiala ‘missing’ men handed over to Orakzai PA

ISI, MI lawyer says internment authorities have withdrawn detention orders.

ISLAMABAD:

The two top spying agencies of the country have informed the Supreme Court that seven ‘missing’ men of the Adiala Jail detained at internment centres in Fata have been handed over to the political administration of Orakzai Agency to be tried under the tribal laws.

The lawyer representing Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) on Wednesday told a three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, that internment authorities have withdrawn the detention orders as per court orders.

Advocate Raja Muhammad Irshad said the seven men had been handed over to the political administration and they would now be tried under the Frontier Crime Regulations (FCR) laws for carrying out attacks against army convoys in the restive areas of Fata.

Dr Niaz Ahmed and 10 other men were allegedly picked up from outside the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi in May 2010 by the intelligence agencies after they were acquitted in three different terrorism cases.

Allegedly, four of them had died while in the custody of the intelligent agencies and seven others were detained in Orakzai Agency on the orders of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s governor after military authorities failed to start a trial against them.

Advocate Tariq Asad, representing the detained men, said the question of illegal confinement of these men for the last two years was yet to come under discussion as they were not arrested from Fata. He claimed that the men were picked up from Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail.

The bench deferred further hearing in the matter till March 25.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2013.