PESHAWAR, Aug 17: Eight foreign prisoners, mostly Arabs, were handed over to a welfare organisation by a local court on Thursday over applications filed by the World Prisoners Relief Commission (WPRC).
The court of additional district and sessions judge, Syed Ahtesham Ali, received surety bonds from former MNA, Haji Jawed Ibrahim Paracha, who is chairman of the WPRC, and Hazrat Aman, a field officer of the Al-Khidmat Foundation, a welfare body which would look after the prisoners and their families till their deportation to their respective countries.
The court ordered that the two guarantors would be responsible for the said prisoners and would produce them whenever they were required during their trials pending before different courts in which they have been charged under the Foreigners Act for illegally staying in Pakistan.
Addressing a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club, Mr Paracha regretted that scores of former warriors, who rendered valuable services during the Afghan war, had been kept in illegal custody by the intelligence agencies.
Mr Paracha produced the eight prisoners before newsmen, stating that they had been kept in illegal confinement for various periods ranging from five to 30 months.
The prisoners are Saeed Ahmad Majboor and Sufian Mazher from Algeria, Nija Bin Saleh from Tunis, Jamshed Ahmad and Zareef Nadeem from Tajikistan, Qari Abdur Rehman and Zareef Lateef from Uzbekistan, and Burhan Ahmad from Bangladesh.
Mr Paracha stated that the two Algerians were married to Pakistani girls in Batkhela (Malakand) and they had been having children from them.
Advocate Fida Gul, president of the Peshawar District Bar Association, who has been conducting trials of these foreigners in the sessions court, informed that all of them had been charged under the Foreigners Act. He added that even when the court issued deportation orders for such prisoners they had to remain in prison under the law till such time when any philanthropist arranged aeroplane tickets for them so that they could return to their country of birth.
Mr Paracha said that another prisoner, Shehzada Bin Khalifa Bin Hassan, belonging to the royal family of Tunis, was shifted to Islamabad and was taken to his country through a special plane arranged by the Moroccan government.
“An Egyptian family of a blind engineer, Farooq bin Saad, including his wife and four children, had also been given in my custody a few months back and we have been arranging their travel documents,” he said.
The foreign office and interior ministry should expedite the process of preparing their travel documents, he requested.
The former MNA claimed that the German government had deported a Moroccan, Kareem, to Pakistan a few months back, adding that he had been living in Germany for the last 35 years.
He regretted that the Government of Pakistan did not bother to inquire from German authorities as to why they had deported him to Pakistan.
Explaining the modus operandi of the intelligence agencies, he said that foreigners and locals had been picked up in an arbitrary manner on the lame excuse of “war on terror” and kept them in illegal confinement for many months. He added that finally when nothing could be proved against these people the agencies handed them over to the FIA or other agencies, only charging them for illegal stay.
Mr Paracha claimed that none of them had stayed illegally in Pakistan as they entered the country with valid visit documents. He added that at the time of their arrest they had not been allowed to pick up their documents.
He said that scores of foreigners had been released and deported to their respective countries with the support of the Peshawar High Court and senior advocate Qazi Mohammad Anwer who had been contesting cases of foreigners free of cost for the last five years.
He said that the arrest of these foreigners had been blown out of proportion by the media. Citing an example, he referred to the case of the Uzbek, Zareef Lateef, stating that initially he was dubbed as second-in-command of Al-Zarqawi and later on he was portrayed as a leader of Uzbek separatists. He alleged that he was tortured in custody.
He claimed that they had arranged air tickets for scores of prisoners, but interestingly when one batch of prisoners was released from prison a fresh batch was shifted there by the intelligence agencies concerned.