All set for military courts to try terror suspects

ISLAMABAD: Military courts will start functioning shortly as the Prime Minister’s Office has given final go-ahead to the interior ministry to start referring terror cases to these special courts for trial.
A Prime Minister’s Office source told The News that the PM in a recent meeting, attended by civil and military officials, finalised the mechanism for selecting and referring the cases to military courts for trial.
“Now it is for the interior ministry to set the ball rolling,” the source said, adding that in a few days time, the media would be informed of the first set of cases to be tried by the military courts.
It is said that nine military courts have been constituted in all the four provinces, which are expected to start functioning in the next few days.
Although, under the 21st Constitutional Amendment, the military courts have been given the power to try suspected civilian terrorists of a specified category, it would be the discretion of the federal government to decide which cases should be referred to these courts.
At the federal government level, it is the interior ministry that has been assigned the job of selecting and referring the cases to the military following a mechanism recently finalised in a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The federal government’s permission has been made mandatory for prosecution of terrorists under the Army Act. The government will also have the power to transfer any terrorism-related case pending in any court to the military courts. In case of the transfer of a pending case, the military courts will not be required to record the evidence already recorded by the previous court.
According to the recent amendments, any person who is or claims or is known to belong to any terrorist group or organisation using the name of religion or a sect and raises arms or wages war against Pakistan or attacks the armed forces of Pakistan and the law enforcement agencies, or attacks any civil or military installations in Pakistan or kidnaps any person for ransom or causes death of any person or injury, or is in possession, storage, fabrication or transport of explosives, firearms, instruments, articles, suicide jackets or vehicles designed to be used for terrorist acts, or receives or provides funding from any foreign or local sources for such illegal activities and acts or does any act to overawe the state or any section of the public or a sect or a religious minority or to create terror or insecurity in Pakistan or attempts to commit any of the said acts, within or outside Pakistan, shall be punished under the Army Act.