ISLAMABAD, Oct 1: The Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi bench, will take up the petition of five Palestinian hijackers, lodged in Adiala jail, demanding that they should not be handed over to the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for extradition to the United States.

One of them has already been handed over to the FBI by the Pakistani authorities.

The Palestinian hijackers had filed the petition last week but it was not taken up. Now they have filed a fresh application, seeking interim order as the situation is changing dramatically and they fear that they would be handed over.

According to counsel for the hijackers, Advocate Tariq Asad,, the application for interim order will be taken up on Tuesday by Justice Javed Buttar of LHC, Rawalpindi bench.

The hijackers contended in their petition, that if they were to be handed over to the USA, they should have been handed over in 1985. When they have completed all the punishment for the crime, there was no justification for handing them over to the USA for fresh trial, they said.

Of the six Palestinians, five were awarded death, and one life imprisonment. Their death sentence was commuted into life imprisonment in December 1988 when the them prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, declared general amnesty.

They have completed their life imprisonments as they were given remissions provided under the law and jail manual.

The hijackers also have a lot of complaints against Palestinian ambassador to Pakistan, Ahmad Abdul Razzaq, who is not ready to accept them as Palestinian citizens.

His plea for not accepting them as Palestinians, they stated, was that they had entered into Pakistan carrying Jordanian and Syrian passports, and could not be provided diplomatic passports.

The hijackers demanded that Palestinian ambassador be declared persona non grata for his failure to perform his diplomatic duties.

The petitioners stated that the government of United States, since the day of their arrest had been demanding their extradition.

Former president, Gen Ziaul Haq, had resisted their demand in the mid-eighties with the assurance that justice would be done in accordance with the law.

A Pakistani non-governmental organisation, National Council of Human Rights, has offered to accommodate them after their release.

The petitioners stated that an official of Palestinian embassy had recently accompanied an FBI team, which visited them in Adiala jail for taking their photographs and finger prints.

That petitioners are: Zayad Hassan Abo-Al Latif, Jamal Saeed Abdul Raheem, Mansurul Rasheed, Wadoodud Mohammad Hafiz Al-Turk, Jamal Saeed Abdul Raheem and Salman Ali Al Tarakai.