Pakistan’s ISI forced to show detainees in court

Seven men allegedly held by Pakistan’s feared intelligence services appeared in court on Monday, an unprecedented development following orders from the country’s highest court. The case challenges perceptions that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence operates above the law. The ISI is accused in the West of still maintaining links to the Taliban and Islamist militants, whom it historically sponsored. The seven men appeared frail, weak, unable to talk and unable to walk properly when they appeared before chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, more than a year and a half after being allegedly arrested. Chaudhry ordered a full medical examination. Intelligence agencies last month handed over the men to the custody of the provincial government in the northwest, after the Supreme Court took up the case. “I have severe pain in my chest, my shoulders are itching. I am still shocked and unwell,” one of the detainees told reporters, surrounded by police and plain-clothed officials without giving his name. Four of the men were reportedly held in the northwestern city of Peshawar and three in the tribal region of Parachinar near the Afghan border. “There should be proper medical treatment and they shall not be shifted to internment centre in Parachinar, so long as the matter is pending before the court,” Chaudhry said. Lawyer Tariq Asad, who represented the detainees, said the court ordered the ISI and Military Intelligence to submit details at the next hearing on March 1 about their detention and under which law they were held. “The report will contain details about what happened to them during their detention over one year and a half and whether any trial took place,” he said. Abdul Qadoos, brother of two of the detainees, Abdul Basit and Abdul Majid, described how they were held in deprivation, having met them briefly inside the court in the company of officials. “My brothers and others lived in detention under very difficult circumstances. They were never given enough food and there was no water available for them to take bath,” he said. Asad said the pair were originally detained in 2008 and acquitted in 2010, then re-arrested by the local administration for 120 days. When the court ordered their release, intelligence agents picked them up in May, he said. “They were asked to implicate two of the other detainees in 2007 attack on ISI’s Hamza camp in Rawalpindi but they refused,” Qadoos, the brother, said. “We have no link whatsoever with Al-Qaeda or Taliban. We have a business — we publish the Holy Quran,” he added. Two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch said it was time for the ISI “to stop acting as a state within a state” after the government failed to identify and punish the killers of a local journalist, Saleem Shahzad, last May. The journalist told HRW he had been threatened by intelligence agents. The US-based group said the ISI remains “beyond the reach of Pakistan’s criminal justice system” and abuses “will only stop if it is subject to the rule of law, civilian oversight, and public accountability”.