Magistrate who recorded Uzair’s confession to testify in ATC online

The judicial magistrate who recorded the purported confession of suspected gang war leader Uzair Baloch will testify about the confession in an anti-terrorism court (ATC) online.

The decision has been taken in view of security concerns over producing the magistrate in the ATC Complex inside the Central Jail Karachi.

According to a court staffer, the hearing was fixed for Saturday but due to some technical errors, it could not be conducted. The magistrate has been directed to record his statement about the authenticity of Uzair’s confessional statement through WhatsApp, Skype or Zoom.

The magistrate had presided over the hearing at the City Courts in 2016 in which Uzair had confessed to a plethora of crimes and levelled stark allegations against Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leaders and police officers.

The accused, however, has now contested the alleged confession, saying that he had never admitted those crimes.

In his reported confessions, Uzair was quoted as saying that just from the Fishermen’s Cooperative Society, he earned Rs2 million from extortion while sister of former president Asif Ali Zardari, Faryal Talpur, received tens of millions of rupees per month.

He also reportedly maintained friendly relations with police officers, including former top cop of Karachi Waseem Ahmed, former head of the Special Investigation Unit Farooq Awan and his brother Shahdat Awan, former prosecutor general of Sindh.

The confessional statement read that due to Uzair’s connections in the PPP with former Sindh home minister Zulfiqar Mirza, MNA Qadir Patel and former senator Yousuf Baloch, all the police officers in Lyari as well as the directors of the FCS were practically appointed by him.

The magistrate, who will appear as a prosecution witness, will depose whether the statement recorded by him was true, and the defence side will cross-question him. According to the staffer, the witness had skipped a past hearing after which the ATC approached his superior judge to ensure his appearance.

Uzair faces trial in over six dozen cases pertaining to murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, extortion and terrorism in different courts. He is also serving a12-year-long sentence handed down by a military court for giving sensitive information about Pakistan’s armed forces to an Iranian intelligence agency.

According to the prosecution, Uzair had escaped from Karachi in 2013 after the federal government launched an operation against criminals in the city. Unverified reports said that he was arrested by Interpol from the United Arab Emirates in 2014. The Rangers, however, claimed his arrest in 2016, saying that he was arrested in a raid in the outskirts of the city.