PESHAWAR, Oct 25: The lawyers representing Dr Shakil Afridi contended before the court of FCR commissioner on Thursday that his conviction on charges of being involved in anti-state activities and having association with a banned organisation were baseless and the trial court had ignored several important points.

Advocates Abdul Lateef Afridi and Samiullah Afridi, representing Dr Afridi in his appeal against his conviction and sentence of 33 years imprisonment, pointed out that it was necessary in the sections of law under which he was convicted that there should be complaints against an accused by individuals. In the present case the administration failed to place on record any complaint against Dr Afridi, they added.

The commissioner, Tariq Jamil, the appellate forum under the FCR, heard partial arguments in the appeal. The proceedings were adjourned to Nov 22 as the government prosecutor was not available.

Jamil Afridi, the convict’s brother, had filed the appeal on his behalf stating that the lower court passed the impugned conviction order on mere surmises and conjectures, therefore the order was liable to be dismissed and the appellant should be acquitted.

Dr Afridi, a former agency surgeon, was picked up allegedly by an intelligence agency in May last year on suspicion of helping the American CIA to trace Osama bin Laden by carrying out a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad. However, he was not convicted on that charge.

He was shifted to Peshawar jail on May 23 after his conviction by the assistant political agent of Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency. He has now been detained in solitary confinement.

The appellant was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment each under sections 121 A (conspiracy to wage war against country or depriving Pakistan of its sovereignty), section 123 (concealing existence of a plan to wage war against Pakistan), and 123 A (condemnation of the creation of the state and advocacy of abolition of its sovereignty) of PPC.

He was sentenced to additional three years under section 124 (assaulting president, governor etc with intention to compel or restrain the exercise of any lawful power) of PPC.

The APA pronounced that the prison terms would run consecutively that means that Dr Afridi has to spend 33 years in prison. His lawyers also raised a technical objection regarding powers of the APA, stating that the lower court being a magistrate of first class had the powers to convict a person up to seven years imprisonment but ironically the appellant was sentenced to 33 years imprisonment that was beyond the powers of the APA/additional district magistrate, therefore the order was not sustainable under the law.

They stated that in its order the APA had mentioned that Dr Afridi was arrested on May 23, 2011 by the political administration and was handed over to an intelligence agency on May 29, 2011. They added that the appellant had remained in illegal detention of that agency for almost a year and was finally handed over back to the administration on May 11, 2012.

Denying all the charges levelled against him, the appellant stated in the appeal that he had no association with the defunct Lashkar-i-Islam and the members of the said organisation never sat or gathered in his office or were associated with him.