Pearl case: SP asked to give documents to defence
HYDERABAD- The Anti-Terrorism Court judge, Syed Ali Ashraf Shah, here on Saturday directed the Superintendent Police (SP) of special branch (defunct Karachi South district) to furnish documents required by the defence lawyer as documentary evidence in support of his client, Adil Sheikh, in the Daniel Pearl case.
The court passed the order on an application filed by the defence counsel, Rai Basheer Ahmed, wherein he stated he had applied for the documents to the SP who declined to provide them and advised him to seek them through the trial court.
Talking to journalists, Ahmad said that the documents pertained to issuance of a show-cause notice and what he described partial departmental action against the co-accused, Adil, who was an employee of the special branch.
He said it was evident from these documents that Adil was in custody of the special branch since Feb 5, rejecting the prosecution’s claim he was arrested on Feb 11 from elsewhere in Karachi.
He told the court that he had not seen the diaries of the Artillery Maidan police station and the register No 19 of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) and Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) centres.
The Advocate General of Sindh, Raja Qureshi, chief prosecutor of the case, said that Ahmed would be facilitated to go through the documents in presence of Investigation Officer (IO) Hameedullah Memon after the court proceedings of the day.
Ahmed also wanted to get the copy of entry No 15, said to have been made at the special branch office about Adil’s detention. The Advocate General (AG) said the SP had been directed to provide copy of the entry, if any.
Ahmed was scheduled to bring the documentary evidence to be put on the court record.
He said he had copies of documents related to the co-accused, Salman Saqib and Fahad Naseem. He provided copies of documents to the AG out of the court. The documents will be put on the court record on Monday when Ahmed will bring original copies of these papers so they could be tallied by the court.
The documents were copies of utility bills, property documents etc. through which the defence wanted to prove the place and date of arrests were different from those stated by the IO and the prosecution.
Referring to the evidence against Naseem, Ahmed said he intended to substantiate the fact that Naseem never lived at Noman Grand City as claimed by the prosecution and added that he had property documents to prove Naseem was residing in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Karachi.
He said there were other documents, including admit card of examination, National Identity Card (NIC) and utility bills, that were received at the same address by Naseem.
About Saqib, Ahmed said he had medical certificates of the Agha Khan University Hospital, Karachi, where the co-accused had been under treatment and had undergone many operations there. He said these documents were enough to repudiate allegations of the prosecution which tried to establish the presence of Saqib at different places during the period when he was under treatment.
Source: Dawn
Date:6/30/2002
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