IHC directs counsel for MOFA to arrange a meeting with Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui
ISLAMABAD, Sep 23 (SABAH): Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday ordered the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to arrange a meeting between its lawyer and Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui, sister of Pakistan’s neuroscientist Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who is currently serving prison term in the USA on terrorism charges.
Justice Sardar Ijaz Ishaq conducted the hearing on a petition filed by Dr. Fowzia for her sister’s release. Justice Sardar Ijaz Ishaq of the court directed the government to inform what measures it could take on the diplomatic front to secure the release of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.
During the hearing, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the court that the government of Pakistan was yet to receive copy of the US court’s decision of 2010 in which it had sentenced her to 86 years behind the bars.
Justice Sardar Ijaz Ishaq remarked that it was strange that the United States had not yet sent copy of the court’s verdict to the government of Pakistan.
The judge asked the spokesman whether the ministry considered Dr. Aafia’s case as its own or her private matter.
The spokesman informed that the neuroscientist’s lawyer in the USA had appealed to the government for clemency for his client.
He went on to say that the US government had given two options to Pakistan in 2010. “One was that Pakistan should sign the Council of Europe’s international convention on prisoners’ exchange. And the second was that Pakistan should sign a bilateral agreement with the USA on the subject,” he elaborated.
The spokesman informed that the Federal Cabinet had approved the agreement in 2013, while the Council of Europe had rejected Pakistan’s request in 2014.
Dr. Fowzia told the court that the Council had rejected the request because at that time capital punishment was not banned in the country.
The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “A summary of the agreement, called the Organization of American States Inter-American Convention on the Execution of Criminal Sentences, was sent to the Prime Minister. The Ministry of Law raised some objections to this summary.”
In the objection of the Ministry of Law, it was mentioned, “After making such an agreement, is Pakistan ready to hand over Dr. Shakeel Afridi, who is wanted by America?”
The MOFA officer read out a diplomatic note of the US State Department in 2015 in the court, in which the US State Department said that even if the US Convention is signed, the political atmosphere in the US is not such that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui could be handed over to Pakistan.
She disclosed that right now only the petition for reducing Afia’s prison term was pending in the US court for which the government needed to expedite its efforts. The IHC then adjourned hearing of the case until September 28, 2022.