QUICK WHEN IT WANTS
It takes a Pakistan court just over two months to punish the man who helped track Osama. But Hafiz Saeed still roams free.
THE TRIAL AGAINST THREE LET OPERATIVES NAMED BY INDIA AS CO- CONSPIRATORS IN THE 26/ 11 MUMBAI ATTACK HAS DRAGGED ON FOR OVER THREE YEARS.
On May 24, a tribal court in Bara, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Agency area, sentenced Dr Shakeel Afridi, the man who helped track down the world’s most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden, to 33 years in prison for “treason”. Afridi conducted a fake vaccination campaign to collect DNA samples that helped the US Central Intelligence Agency identify the bin Laden family, hiding in a compound in Abbottabad. The verdict has deepened the already frayed relations between Pakistan and the US. The secret trial lasted just two and a half months. Tribal courts in Pakistan operate under the Frontier Crimes Regulation, a special judicial system that bypasses the regular justice system.
In sharp contrast, the trial against three Lashkar- e- Toiba ( LeT) operatives, named by India as co- conspirators in the November 26, 2008, attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people, has continued for over three years. The three accused— Zaki- ur- Rehman Lakhvi, Zarar Shah and Abu AlQama— were arrested after a military raid on their Muzaffarabad base camp and produced before the special court on February 19, 2009. Jamat- ud- Dawa ( JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, widely suspected as having masterminded the attack, is also a free man. An anti terrorism special court in Lahore cleared him of any 26/ 11 link on February 16, 2009; the Lahore High Court subsequently quashed all cases against Saeed on October 12, 2009, and set him free. The court also ruled that JuD was not a banned organisation and could work freely in Pakistan.
The decision to free Saeed disappointed many civil society activists in Pakistan who saw it as a failure to punish all those behind the gruesome 26/ 11 attack. “Pakistani courts have a history of taking years to decide cases. However, the tribal court’s speedy trial in Afridi’s case was evidence that the establishment wanted him behind bars,” said a Peshawar- based lawyer who did not want to be named. He cited the release of the JuD chief to illustrate his point. “The Pakistani establishment did not want to put the JuD chief behind bars, so his case was never pursued seriously. As a result, he manage to secure release,” the lawyer said. India has presented fresh evidence against Saeed during the May 24- 25 home secretarylevel talks in Islamabad. The Pakistani side is yet to respond to it.
Saeed’s release only added to Pakistan’s poor record of punishing extremists. In January this year, Malik Ishaq, the leader of the notorious antiShia outfit Lashkar- e- Jhangvi, was released after serving 14 years in the Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail. Charged with 44 cases of murder and terrorism, he was acquitted in 34 cases and granted bail in the remaining 10. His release is particularly controversial given accusations that he masterminded the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore.
Other verdicts have only buttressed this popular notion of the courts being soft on extremists. On May 13, an antiterrorism court released nine suspects
detained for the February 25, 2008, suicide- bomb attack on then Pakistan Army surgeon general Mushtaq Baig. On May 5, 2011, an anti- terrorism court acquitted four people accused of the September 20, 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing in which 54 people were killed. Those acquitted include Mohammed Aqeel alias Dr Usman, who has been implicated in various assaults, including the March 3, 2009, attack on the Sri Lankan team and on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi on October 10, 2009. On May 25, 2010, Pakistan’s Supreme Court dismissed appeals filed by federal interior ministry authorities challenging Saeed’s release from house arrest. On April 17, 2009, the Supreme Court ordered that Maulana Abdul Aziz, head cleric of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid— the target of a Pakistani Army clean- up operation in 2007— be freed on bail as he awaits trial. The preacher faces a total of 26 charges, including abetment to murder, kidnap and incitement through hate speech.