Execution video: army inquiry ‘still in progress’

ISPR spokesperson says it cannot be ascertained when the probe will be completed.

KARACHI: The inquiry ordered by the chief of army staff into a video showing alleged extrajudicial killings by men in Pakistan Army uniforms is “still in progress”, two months after it was announced.

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani reportedly ordered the inquiry after the US stressed it would cut aid to the military over human rights abuses and urged Pakistan to investigate the video.

The video shows uniformed personnel first lining up and then executing six blindfolded men.

Major-General Athar Abbas, the director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), told The Express Tribune that he could not provide a concrete timeline as to when the inquiry would be completed.

However, Abbas confirmed that action had been taken after a 2009 inquiry into a video which showed uniformed personnel beating up suspects in a police station. “People have been punished for that,” he said.

The New York Times reported on October 21 that the US would withhold training and equipment for about half a dozen army units involved in extrajudicial killings.

When asked if the army had been made aware of such a move, Abbas said: “No, we have not. This information has not been conveyed to us formally, only through media reports, and we do not comment on media reports.”

In the statement issued by the ISPR about the inquiry, Kayani “cautioned against reaching hasty conclusions about the involvement of Pakistan Army soldiers,” and stated that it was “not expected of a professional army to engage in excesses against the people whom it is trying to guard against the scourge of terrorism.”

Kayani was contacted by the then US ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson after the video, which is widely believed to have been filmed in Swat, released online.

According to a US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks, Patterson raised the issue in September 2009 but advised that the US should ‘avoid comment’ on these incidents.

Patterson wrote at the time, “A growing body of evidence is lending credence to allegations of human rights abuses by Pakistan security forces during domestic operations against terrorists in Malakand Division and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. While it is oftentimes difficult to attribute with accuracy any responsibility for such abuses, reporting from a variety of sources suggests that Frontier Corps (FC) and regular Pakistan Army units involved in direct combat with terrorists may have been involved. The crux of the problem appears to centre on the treatment of terrorists detained in battlefield operations and have focused on the extrajudicial killing of some detainees.”

Patterson stated that the North West Frontier Province (now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) Police had also been implicated in abuse and extrajudicial killings. She assessed that the primary factors behind these incidents appeared to be revenge for terrorist attacks on the army and FC, as well as the military’s concerns that the courts were incapable of dealing with people detained on the battlefield.

Human Rights Watch said in July that it had corroborated 50 cases based on a list of 238 suspicious killings provided by local sources and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2010.