PESHAWAR: The FATA tribunal on Thursday disposed off a revision petition by alleged US spy Dr Shakil Afridi against an earlier decision by the Commissioner FCR, resending the case for revision and to remove ambiguities in the order.

A physician by profession, Afridi was accused of assisting the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in obtaining DNA samples of former al-Aqaeda chief Osama Bin Laden through a fake vaccination campaign. He was later sentenced by the trial court of Assistant Political Agent Bara to 33 years in prison and Rs3 lakh fine for his alleged links to outlawed militant outfit Lashkar-i-Islam.

The tribunal comprising Justice Shah Wali, Member Technical Akbar Khan and Member Judiciary Pir Fida after hearing the arguments in Dr Shakil Afridi’s revision petition wrote a five-page judgment, saying the FCR commissioner had not clearly mentioned in his judgment whether the political agent should conduct the fresh trial of the case under Rawaj/FCR or as a ‘Sessions Judge’ under the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) 1898.

The tribunal ordered the commissioner FCR to remove the ambiguity.

Reproducing the operative portion of the commissioner’s order, the tribunal in its judgment said that it was ambiguous and self-contradictory.

The commissioner’s order of Aug 28, 2012 had directed that the case be “remanded back to the political agent/sessions judge Khyber Agency” for a retrial and to conduct re-hearing of “arguments of both the parties under Law & Rewaj.”

The tribunal’s judgment today said that the order was self-contradictory because, by directing the “political agent Khyber Agency/sessions judge” to try the case himself as per “law and Rawaj”, the commissioner had made it unclear whether the case should be tried as a political agent under Rawaj/FCR or as a sessions judge under the CrPC.

The tribunal further contended that probably provision of sections 3(3) and 11(1) of FCR escaped the notice of the commissioner while passing the impugned order. Had these provisions been in his knowledge, he would not have mentioned the word ‘sessions judge’ as the offenses with which the petitioner is charged are included in the second schedule of the FCR, so are exclusively try-able by the political agent under FCR through a council of elders, the tribunal said.