Plea against Omar’s extradition disposed of
KARACHI- The constitutional petition, filed by wife of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, prime suspect in the Daniel Pearl case, seeking a restraining order against his extradition, was on Tuesday disposed of by a division bench of the Sindh High Court, comprising Justice Ghulam Rabbani and Justice Zia Pervez.
Sadia Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh had filed the petition, through K. M. A. Samdani, for a writ of mandamus against the respondents, restraining them from surrendering the petitioner’s husband to the US authorities or any other foreign authority and from sending the petitioner’s husband abroad without his consent.
The secretaries of interior and foreign affairs and the Sindh home secretary were made respondents. Notices were issued to the deputy attorney general and the advocate-general, Sindh.
When the matter came up, counsel for respondents submitted before the court, “if respondents decide to deliver the husband of the petitioner to the officers or authorities of a foreign country, he will be delivered without any contravention of the law of the land”.
After this statement, the bench in its order held that “in view of the statement made on behalf of the government, the learned counsel for the petitioner signifies his satisfaction and does not press his petition. Petition stands disposed of accordingly, along with the listed application.”
On Feb 25, the police had obtained extension in remand of the prime suspect until March 12 for enabling it to trace the body of Daniel Pearl and recover weapons. On that date the detainee, along with two others, had told the administrative judge for the anti-terrorism courts that the police had forcibly obtained signatures on blank papers.
The petitioner had claimed that the London-born detainee was a citizen of Pakistan whose passport had been surrendered to the Inspector General Police (IGP) Punjab. The petitioner and the detainee are parents of a three-month old baby.
It was the case of the petitioner that the detainee had nothing to do either with the kidnapping of Danial Pearl or his reported killing or any other crime for that matter.
As soon as the detainee learnt that he was wanted by the police, he surrendered himself on Feb 5 to the IGP Punjab in the presence of the Punjab home secretary and Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Police, Lahore range, the petitioner had maintained.
As a student, the detainee visited Bosnia and Ethiopia with the aid convoys of Mercy, an Non Governmental Organization (NGO), and engaged himself in other charity works to help the suffering Muslims all over the world.
He languished in the Indian jails for nearly six years in illegal incarceration where he was kept despite the failure of Indian government to procure a conviction against him for trumped up charges under TADA. He managed to return to Pakistan in 2000.
Referring to press reports of possible extradition of the detainee to the US, the petitioner had maintained that the extradition of the detainee would be in violation of the provisions of the Extradition Act, 1972. It would also be in violation of the constitutional guarantees.
It was the contention of the petitioner that if the allegation against the detainee was that he had committed an offence within Pakistan, he had the right to defend himself against such false accusations in the courts of Pakistan. No court outside Pakistan has the right to try the detainee.
Sadia Omar Saeed Shaikh had taken the position that she and her baby son would be deeply aggrieved if the detainee was forced to leave Pakistan as he was the sole bread-winner of the family.
It was, therefore, prayed that the court direct the respondents to refrain from surrendering the detainee to any foreign authority and in particular to the authorities of US government in contravention of the law of the land (particularly the Extradition Act, 1972) and the constitutional guarantees (Particularly the guarantee enshrined in Article 15 thereof).
Under the 1972 Extradition Act, the country requesting extradition is required to place all the relevant material before a judge to be appointed by the federal government.
Source: Dawn
Date:3/6/2002
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