PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday sought the interior ministry’s response to a petition seeking the court’s orders for the government not to send former agency surgeon of Khyber Agency Dr Shakil Afridi abroad in case of any secret deal with the US government.

Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Mohammad Ayub Khan heard the preliminary arguments of the petitioner and former deputy attorney general, Mohammad Khursheed Khan, who contended that any move by the government to shift Dr Shakil abroad would be unconstitutional and illegal.

Dr Shakil, a former agency surgeon of Khyber Agency, who was taken into custody in May 2001 on suspicion of helping American CIA to trace Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden through a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad, has recently been shifted to Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail from Peshawar Central prison, where he had been imprisoned since his conviction by an assistant political agent on charges of having links with a banned militant outfit in 2012.

Petitioner wants court to block shifting of Khyber’s ex-surgeon abroad

The petitioner requested the court to direct the government not to send Dr Shakil abroad until the petition is disposed of.

He prayed the court to declare that if Dr Shakil has to be sent abroad, the high court’s permission should be taken before it.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had repeatedly requested the federal government to shift Dr Shakil from Peshawar for security reasons.

His recent shifting to Adiala Jail had also given birth to speculations including the one about his possible shifting abroad.

The petitioner had filed the petition last year after rumours surfaced that Dr Shakil might be sent abroad and handed over to the US government.

He claimed that he came to know that the adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs had said that if the US formally put up a request, then Pakistan could consider the handing over of Dr Shakil to the US.

The petitioner alleged that Dr Shakil had carried out a fake vaccination drive and had provided all the information to the Americans which had resulted into attack on Pakistan and killing of Osama bin Laden by them.

He said Dr Shakil was a convict who had brought bad name to the country and that the government had no legal authority to send a convict abroad.

A petition of Dr Shakil against the upholding of his conviction by an appellate forum of the FCR Commissioner has been pending with the Fata Tribunal over three years without noteworthy progress.

The tribunal has now fixed May 31 for hearing that petition.

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

A petition filed by the administration of Khyber Agency has also been pending with the Fata Tribunal against the reduction of the sentence of Dr Shakil by the commissioner.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2018