Police apology comes too late for Pakistani diplomat

LONDON: The West Midlands Police has taken a U-turn and acknowledged that it mishandled the case of senior Pakistani diplomat Dr Saeed Khan Mohmand after The News exposed the shabby treatment given to the Pakistani diplomat and how Pakistan’s Foreign Office failed to act on behalf of their Counsel General in Birmingham.
The acknowledgment comes too late as the diplomat has already left for Pakistan after becoming an undeclared persona non-grata for the UK government for the alleged offence of driving his car too fast and without insurance. The News has received a copy of the letter written by the West Midlands Police authority to the former Counsel General in which the police authority admits its fault with regards to the search and seizure of the Pakistani diplomat. It tacitly accepts that the police were in the wrong and should not have stopped Saeed who was driving a diplomatic number-plated car.
The letter addressed to the diplomat mentions the police need to be trained more when it come to handling foreign diplomats. It says that the policemen who stopped and searched the Pakistani diplomat have been made “fully aware of their responsibilities under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1963”.
It was said that the diplomat was driving without insurance at the time of the stop and search but the police letter clearly states that the Pakistani diplomat was “in possession of vehicle insurance at the time of the incident” and should not have been stopped in the first place.
Following the publication of the news, the High Commission of Pakistan issued a statement which “clarified” that Saeed Khan Mohmand was “neither arrested nor detained by the British police and that he was returning to Pakistan as a matter of his transfer back to the Headquarters at his own request”.
Kamran Ishtiaq, Birmingham-based leader of the British Pakistani Youth Council (BPYC) led the community campaign against the harassment of the diplomat and organised meetings in his support. “Secondly, the Pakistani High Commission needs to clarify why they denied the happening of such events. Why the Foreign Office did not stand by the very person who was not only an extended representative of the same office but a Pakistani citizen too,” demanded Kamran Ishtiaq.
The Pakistan High Commission (PHC) told The News that immediately upon receipt of the Police Inquiry Report of West Midlands Police sent to the PHC by the then Consul General Dr Saeed Khan, the High Commission had forwarded the same to the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) to seek clarification and explanation. The PHC has also reminded the FCO to expedite its response.
In the meanwhile, Dr Saeed has left for Pakistan as per his request made by him twice to the Pakistan Foreign Office to transfer him back home for his personal reasons.