ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court was informed on Friday that the information used by former president Pervez Musharraf in his book ‘In the Line of Fire’ about handing over some Al Qaeda members to the US Central Intelligence Agency had been drawn from some local institutions.
“It is my understanding that the author of the book believes that these names were provided to him by some institutions,” Additional Attorney General Tariq Khokhar told a three-judge bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja.
The court was hearing the case of Masood Janjua who had gone missing in 2005 after reaching Peshawar from Rawalpindi.
In a chapter of the book titled ‘Manhunt’, Gen Musharraf wrote: “Since shortly after 9/11, when many members of Al Qaeda fled Afghanistan and crossed the border into Pakistan, we have played cat and mouse with them. “We have captured 689 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totalling millions of dollars.”
On Feb 18, the court had mentioned handing over of some persons to the US for bounty and asked Mr Khokhar to submit relevant excerpts after comparing the first and second editions of the book.
The AAG submitted the excerpts on Friday, at which the court wondered whether the particulars of those who had been handed over to the US could be ascertained.
Mr Khokhar said it was his understanding that the author had received this information from some institutions.
When the court asked whether the AAG could get these particulars, he said he would try to contact the relevant quarters.
Mr Khokhar said that in June 2006 the Council of Europe, a leading human rights organisation that includes 47 member states, 28 of them from the European Union, had highlighted in its report that many persons had been kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency, detained and then handed over to different countries for various reasons, including interrogation.
Another report by the European Parliament in 2007 on torture flights stated that the CIA had conducted 1,245 flights from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Europe and cited the United Nations convention against torture.
These flights, he said, were in violation of the rendition laws which dealt with handing over the custody of a person from one jurisdiction to another.
This fell within the category of extraordinary rendition which, according to him, was a crime against the humanity.
Referring to failure of Punjab police to contact Dr Imran Munir about whom the UNHCR had declined to share information, the court ordered the provincial government to depute a competent officer to visit the Sri Lankan town of Kandy to interrogate him.
On Additional Advocate General Mustafa Ramday’s insistence, the court accepted the name of Rawalpindi SP Haroon Joya to visit Kandy.
According to Amna Masood Janjua, who is waging a struggle for the recovery of missing persons, including her husband Masood, Dr Munir had written in a diary that he had heard about a businessman from Rawalpindi called Janjua in some detention centre in Rawalpindi.
Punjab police had told the court that the privacy laws and international conventions under which the UNHCR operated did not permit it to share any information about an individual listed with it for asylum or who was residing in its camp.
A report submitted by Rawalpindi police said the foreign affairs ministry through a letter sent on July 25 last year had apprised the police that the high commission in Colombo had tried to get access to Dr Munir through the UNHCR office in Sri Lanka. But the police had been informed informally that Dr Munir was living in a UNHCR camp in Kandy and was listed at No.53 as an asylum seeker, the report said, adding that the Foreign Office had asked the Pakistani mission to continue efforts to find a way to access the man.
The court warned of ordering suspension of pension being received by three army officers who had not submitted their affidavits despite directives.
Of the 11 witnesses cited by Amna Janjua for cross-examination, retired Lt Gen Shafqaat Ahmed, Lt Gen Nadeem Taj and Col Habibullah are yet to submit their affidavits.
Meanwhile, Mr Khokhar told reporters that he had received a letter from the defence ministry disclosing the whereabouts of two more missing persons -- Ubaidullah and Mulazim Hussain who had been picked up on Jan 8, 2012 from Bhakkar. Both have been detained at an internment Centre in Lakki Marwat.