ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has launched a “review and reconsideration process” in the case of an alleged Indian spy, Commander Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav, following a verdict by the International Court of Justice in July 2019 that asked the country to reevaluate the entire process of the trial and give India consular access to the prisoner, said Foreign Office Spokesman Dr. Muhammad Faisal.
The Indian naval officer was arrested in March 2016 from the volatile Baluchistan province during a counter-intelligence operation.
According to Pakistani authorities, Jadhav confessed to his involvement in subversive activities and espionage against the country and admitted that he was working for Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s clandestine spy agency.
Tried by a Field General Court Martial, Jadhav was found guilty and sentenced to death a little more than a year after his arrest in April 2017. However, New Delhi approached the ICJ within a month of his sentence and the world court asked Pakistan to stay his execution pending a final decision.
On Thursday, Dr. Faisal said that Pakistan had begun its internal “review and reconsideration process” regarding the death penalty handed down by the military court, though he declined to give details of the legal procedure.
Talking to Arab News in August this year, a leading international law expert, Ahmer Bilal Soofi, said “the review could be done by the appellant court or the high court in exercise of writ petition or it could also be a special bench.”
He added that Jadhav’s “lawyer should be a Pakistani national because under the Pakistan Bar Council’s rules no foreign lawyer can appear before the Pakistani court.”
His assertion was also substantiated by another lawyer, Yasser Hamdani, who noted that “the ICJ verdict makes it very clear that a civilian court will be a necessity in the matter.”
However, he maintained it was not clear how the review process would work since a decision of the military court could not be taken up by the superior civilian judiciary under the Army Act.
“Ultimately, Pakistan will have to constitute a special tribunal by making another law,” Hamdani said.
Pakistan begins ‘review and reconsideration’ process in Jadhav case
Pakistan begins ‘review and reconsideration’ process in Jadhav case
- The International Court of Justice asked Islamabad to review the procedure of the trial in July this year
- Pakistan has already given India consular access to Jadhav in compliance with the world court’s verdict
Pakistani politicians urge dialogue with Imran Khan’s party as PM offers talks
- National Dialogue Committee group organizes summit attended by prominent lawyers, politicians and journalists in Islamabad
- Participants urge government to lift alleged ban on political activities and media restrictions, form committee for negotiations
ISLAMABAD: Participants of a meeting featuring prominent politicians, lawyers and civil society members on Wednesday urged the government to initiate talks with former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, lift alleged bans on political activities after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently invited the PTI for talks.
The summit was organized by the National Dialogue Committee (NDC), a political group formed last month by former PTI members Chaudhry Fawad Husain, ex-Sindh governor Imran Ismail and Mehmood Moulvi. The NDC has called for efforts to ease political tensions in the country and facilitate dialogue between the government and Khan’s party.
The development takes place amid rising tensions between the PTI and Pakistan’s military and government. Khan, who remains in jail on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, blames the military and the government for colluding to keep him away from power by rigging the 2024 general election and implicating him in false cases. Both deny his allegations.
Since Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote in April 2022, the PTI has complained of a widespread state crackdown, while Khan and his senior party colleagues have been embroiled in dozens of legal cases. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last month invited the PTI for talks during a meeting of the federal cabinet, saying harmony among political forces was essential for the country’s progress.
“The prime objective of the dialogue is that we want to bring the political temperatures down,” Ismail told Arab News after the conference concluded.
“At the moment, the heat is so much that people— especially in politics— they do not want to sit across the table and discuss the pertaining issues of Pakistan which is blocking the way for investment.”
Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who heads the Awaam Pakistan political party, attended the summit along with Jamaat-e-Islami senior leader Liaquat Baloch, Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan’s Waseem Akhtar and Haroon Ur Rashid, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. Journalists Asma Shirazi and Fahd Husain also attended the meeting.
Members of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the PTI did not attend the gathering.
The NDC urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to initiate talks with the opposition. It said after the government forms its team, the NDC will announce the names of the opposition negotiating team after holding consultations with its jailed members.
“Let us create some environment. Let us bring some temperatures down and then we will do it,” Ismail said regarding a potential meeting with the jailed Khan.
Muhammad Ali Saif, a former adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, told participants of the meeting that Pakistan was currently in a “dysfunctional state” due to extreme political polarization.
“The tension between the PTI and the institutions, particularly the army, at the moment is the most fundamental, the most prominent and the most crucial issue,” Saif noted.
‘CHANGED FACES’
The summit proposed six specific confidence-building measures. These included lifting an alleged ban on political activities and the appointment of the leaders of opposition in Pakistan’s Senate and National Assembly.
The joint communique called for the immediate release of women political prisoners, such as Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and PTI leader Yasmin Rashid, and the withdrawal of cases against supporters of political parties.
The communiqué also called for an end to media censorship and proposed that the government and opposition should “neither use the Pakistan Armed Forces for their politics nor engage in negative propaganda against them.”
Amir Khan, an overseas Pakistani businessperson, complained that frequent political changes in the country had undermined investors’ confidence.
“I came here with investment ideas, I came to know that faces have changed after a year,” Amir Khan said, referring to the frequent change in government personnel.
Khan’s party, on the other hand, has been calling for a “meaningful” political dialogue with the government.
However, it has accused the government of denying PTI members meetings with Khan in the Rawalpindi prison where he remains incarcerated.
“For dialogue to be meaningful, it is essential that these authorized representatives are allowed regular and unhindered access to Imran Khan so that any engagement accurately reflects his views and PTI’s collective position,” PTI leader Azhar Leghari told Arab News last week.
