Fata Tribunal adjourns Dr Shakil Afridi case

PESHAWAR: The Federally Administered Tribal Areas Tribunal on Wednesday adjourned to May 24 the hearing into a petition of Dr Shakil Afridi challenging the upholding of his conviction by an appellate forum for having links with militant outfits.

Asking both the state prosecutor and petitioner’s lawyer to prepare their respective cases well, the tribunal announced that it would definitely hear arguments on the next hearing.

The tribunal, which is the third and final judicial forum available under the Frontier Crimes Regulation, and consists of chairman Sange Marjan Khan and members Hussainzada Khan and Atif Nazir, pointed out that the case would not be delayed further.

Qamar Nadeem, lawyer for the petitioner, told Dawn that the tribunal had ordered both sides to fully prepare their cases to give arguments on the next hearing.

On Mar 15, 2014, the FCR commissioner, the appellate forum under the FCR, had upheld Dr Shakil’s conviction on the charge of being linked to a banned militant organisation of Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency. He however reduced his original prison term slapped by the assistant political agent’s court from 33 years to 23 years and that of Rs320,000 fine to Rs220,000.

Through the current petition, Dr Shakil has challenged the decision of the commissioner.

The tribunal also adjourned hearing into a petition of Khyber Agency’s administration against the reduction of Dr Shakil’s sentence by the commissioner.

No significant progress has taken place in the case during the last more than two years. Initially, despite the issuance of repeated notices by the tribunal, the administration of Khyber Agency didn’t produce the records of the case.

Though it submitted the records to the tribunal in July last year, the cases were later adjourned many times during the unavailability of the prosecutor.

Dr Shakil was taken into custody in May 2011 by intelligence agencies on the suspicion of arranging a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad at the behest of American CIA.

He however was not convicted on that charge.

The assistant political agent, who is also the additional district magistrate of Bara, convicted him on May 23, 2012 for involvement in anti-state activities by supporting the Bara-based Lashkar-i-Islam, and sentenced him on different counts to a total of 33 years’ imprisonment along with a fine of Rs320,000.

Dr Shakil claimed he was denied the right to fair trial and was convicted by the assistant political agent on ‘flimsy grounds.’

He added that the FCR commissioner had ignored several facts while upholding his conviction.

The petitioner said earlier, the tribunal sent the case back to the commissioner for clarifying certain points, but instead of doing that job, the commissioner upheld the decision of the APA in the case against him.

Source: Dawn