In the name of the law: FIA proposes creating Stop List at airports

It will allow the agency to prevent ‘wanted’ criminals from fleeing the country.

LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has proposed a Stop List alongside the Exit Control List (ECL) which would enable the agency to prevent ‘wanted’ criminals from fleeing the country. A summary in this regard was sent to Ministry of Interior Affairs in the first week of March and is awaiting approval.

A senior FIA official requesting anonymity said the process of having names of certain individuals placed on the ECL was arduous and took at least a month. “This gives criminals ample time to flee the country,” he said.

The Interior Ministry deals with the ECL and the FIA is not authorised to place or remove names on the list.

The official said the Stop List would enable the FIA to prevent suspects being investigated from fleeing the country. The list was introduced in 2003 but the Supreme Court scrapped it in 2013 after some petitioners said that the FIA had placed names of several innocent people on the list.

He said that the FIA and the Ministry of Interior had received several complaints from law enforcement agencies of suspects fleeing the country before their names could be placed on the ECL. He said that the FIA had sent the summary to the ministry in view of the complaints it had received.

The official said that names of more than 8,500 people had been placed on the ECL and the Ministry of Interior Affairs dealt with the matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28^th, 2015.