Lawyer killed in court as Pakistan blood vendetta spills into open

Law student accused of firing point blank six times at human rights champion as part of long family feud

ONE of Pakistan’s most distinguished lawyers has been shot dead while in court as part of an alleged blood feud.

Latif Afridi, a champion of human rights who regularly stood up to the Taliban and abuses by Pakistan’s military, was shot six times at point-blank range in Peshawar High Court on Monday.

Challenging the Islamist group or Islamabad’s powerful army has had fatal consequences for a number of highprofile Pakistani figures. However, the assassination of Afridi, known as Latif Lala, was reported to be the result of a vendetta between distant relatives in his influential family.

“Don’t shoot, I had a feud with him and I have taken my revenge,” witnesses reported the killer as saying after the attack.

The man was dressed as a lawyer. Video of the aftermath showed Mr Afridi, wearing full judicial robes, slumped lifeless in an easy chair.

Pakistan’s court system is weighed down by a backlog of millions of cases and until recently courts did not run in the tribal lands along the border with Afghanistan. Disputing parties in north-west Pakistan instead frequently pursue justice through an informal jirga system, with elders attempting to dish out quick and summary verdicts.

When that system breaks down, blood feuds can erupt. Disputes, often over the ownership of land, can run for decades and claim many lives before they are ended through mediation and tribal councils.

Iqbal Afridi, a member of parliament for the Khyber district, told a local paper: “No doubt, [Latif Lala] is the latest victim of a long-running family feud.”

Adnan Samiullah Afridi, the law student who was arrested at the scene, was remanded in police custody for two days on suspicion of murder.

The suspect is the son of Samiullah Afridi, a senior lawyer killed in 2015 after representing Shakeel Afridi, the doctor jailed for his alleged role in helping the CIA to run a fake vaccination programme to find Osama bin Laden’s hideout. Samiullah Afridi worked on the case with Latif “Lala” Afridi – the two are loosely related.

After the doctor was jailed for 33 years, Samiullah received death threats and was shot dead in 2015. A Taliban splinter group claimed responsibility but the dead lawyer’s family blamed Latif Afridi’s relatives.

Four years later, Wazir Akbar, a first cousin of Latif Afridi, was shot dead by unnamed men in a killing widely thought to be carried out by Samiullah Afridi’s family. There were then reportedly several unsuccessful attempts to settle the matter through negotiation over the years. However, in 2021, Judge Aftab Afridi – brother of Samiullah – was killed alongside his wife, grandson and daughter-in-law, as they drove from Peshawar to Islamabad.

Latif Afridi condemned the killing and said he had played no part, but Samiullah’s family blamed him.