PHC restrains govt from handing over Dr Shakil Afridi to US

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has restrained the government of Pakistan from handing over Dr Shakil Afridi to the United States (US).

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Ayub Khan allowed a writ petition, in which the bench was requested to restrain the government from handing over the doctor to the US who had been convicted for having links with a militant organisation. The bench ruled that the government would not hand over the convicted prisoner to the US.

The bench issued the order in a writ petition filed by a senior lawyer, Muhammad Khurshid Khan.

He had sought the court’s directions for both the federal and provincial governments not to shift Dr Shakil Afridi to another country or jail from Peshawar Central Prison, or inform the court before any such decision.

The petition was filed in 2017 after reports surfaced that the doctor might be sent abroad and handed over to the US government. During the hearing, the petitioner informed the court that Dr Shakil Afridi had been shifted to Punjab province during the pendency of the case.

He said he had requested the court to restrain the government from handing over Shakil Afridi to the US as not only his appeal against conviction was pending in the Fata Tribunal, but also he could be kept in the Peshawar jail legally. He believed his handover to the US would be a violation of law of the land.

The petitioner submitted that Shakil Afridi was convicted of links with terrorists and is a Pakistani citizen.

“How was another country demanding a jailed prisoner of Pakistan?” He questioned.

Dr Shakil Afridi, a former agency surgeon of Khyber Agency, who was taken into custody on May 22, 2011, on suspicion of helping the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trace Osama bin Laden through a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad. He was imprisoned in the Peshawar Central Prison since his conviction by an assistant political agent on charges of having links with a banned outfit in 2012 and has been shifted, reportedly, to the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi by the security forces.

The law officers representing the provincial and federal governments submitted before the bench that the government had no intention to hand over Dr Shakil Afridi to the US.