ISLAMABAD: Pakistani court has temporarily barred the extradition of a US citizen of Pakistani origin who is accused of planning a terrorist attack in New York, a lawyer said Wednesday.
Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of Islamabad High Court suspended the extradition order against Talha Haroon, 19, who is currently jailed in Rawalpindi pending his repatriation.
Lawyer Tariq Asad, who petitioned the Islamabad High Court against the order, said he had won a stay.
Siddiqui also summoned officials from the interior ministry for the next court hearing on April 11, according to an order seen by AFP.
“The allegation was that he was planning an armed operation against a public place in New York with IS,” Asad said, referring to the Daesh group.
He said Haroon had returned from the US to Pakistan more than a year ago.
In his application to the court, Haroon’s father Haroon Rashid had written: “The story against the petitioner’s son is entirely concocted and false. He is a young teenaged student and in case of extradition he may lose his life and career.”
He added his son was a victim of “biased and prejudiced policy against the Muslims” by US President Donald Trump.
Pakistan has a bilateral extradition treaty with the US that was signed before the South Asian country gained independence from Britain in 1947.
It has previously surrendered high-profile fugitives including Mir Qazi, convicted of the 1993 shootings at the CIA headquarters in Langley, and Ramzi Yousef, convicted for his part in the World Trade Center truck bombing the same year.
Pakistan court stops extradition of US citizen accused of terror plot
Pakistan court stops extradition of US citizen accused of terror plot
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
