SHC directs law officer to file comments on plea for repatriation of Dr Aafia Siddiqui

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday directed the federal law officer to file detailed comments on efforts being made for repatriation from US of a detained Pakistani, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.
The direction came on a fresh application filed by Dr. Fouzia Siddiqui, sister of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who sought implementation of court orders that had directed the ministry of foreign affairs to explore ways of and make efforts for a bilateral agreement with the US government regarding repatriation of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui from the US.
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who did her PhD in genetics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was prosecuted in the US for allegedly attacking US soldiers in Afghanistan and convicted by a US court for 86 years in prison in September 2010.
The petitioner submitted in the petition that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a resident of Karachi, along with her three children, was allegedly kidnapped from Gulshan-e-Iqbal in March 2003 when she was leaving for Rawalpindi from her mother’s house.
She submitted that some detainees had been handed over to the US agencies by Pakistan’s law-enforcement agencies in violation of the Constitution.She submitted that US courts had no authority to conduct the trial of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui without the fulfillment of lawful extradition formalities.
The petitioner submitted that the government violated the fundamental rights of her sister by allowing a foreign country to illegally take her from the soil of her own country and left at the mercy of a foreign country that quorum non-judice court sentenced her for 86 years in prison.
She submitted that the US government in a reported statement wanted to shift Dr. Aafia Siddiqui but the Pakistani government showed no interest in bringing one of the citizens of the country back to her country.
She submitted that the government should sign a treaty for shifting of prisoners being incarcerated in other countries to bring them to the country for serving their sentences here.
The SHC’s division bench headed by Chief Justice Faisal Arab directed the federal law officer to file a detailed report along with efforts made for the repatriation of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui since May 2013 and adjourned the hearing for November 6.
It is pertinent to mention here that the SHC in May 2013 had disposed of the petition with a direction to the federal government, including the ministry of foreign affairs, to explore ways and means and make efforts for bilateral agreements as envisaged in the Ordinance and in the light of the two conventions between Pakistan and US within reasonable time.
A foreign ministry official had submitted that the Council of Europe Convention had declined the government’s request without giving any reasons in April 2014 in order to keep the confidentiality of the member states.
However, the ministry of interior and the ministry of law and justice have been approached to give their views on a possible
accession of Pakistan to the Organization of American States, an inter-American convention on serving of criminal sentences abroad, and a reply to this effect was still awaited. He submitted that the government had been making efforts for repatriation of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.