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The Lahore High Court has ordered Ministry of Foreign Affairs to immediately write a letter to the government of the United States demanding details including the reasons for their arrest and the legal charges levelled against them, about Pakistani nationals currently detained in Afghanistan at Bagram Airbase.
The court was hearing a petition concerning seven Pakistanis detained without charge at Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan. The petition has been filed by Justice Project Pakistan, a Lahore-based non-profit law firm. Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan observed that the Pakistani detainees were picked up in Pakistan and illegally rendered to Bagram as innocent victims of the "war on terror".
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs submitted before the court that since the court's last order of February 15th 2012 a committee had been formed and diplomatic channels had been opened. However, Justice Khan noted that the report filed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs showed that the diplomatic negotiations were cursory at best. He referred to the UK case of the Pakistani detainee Yunus Rahmatullah in which the UK High Court ordered the Americans to hand him back to the UK. Yunus is one of the Pakistanis represented in the petition pending before Justice Khan.
Justice Project Pakistan's (JPP) lead counsel, Barrister Sarah Belal, submitted in court that under the new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the US and Afghan government published on March 9th 2012, the United States had pledged to hand over all detention facilities in Afghanistan to Afghan authorities within six months.
She noted that the MoU made no mention of third country nationals being held at US detention facilities. Consequently, the future of any Pakistani at Bagram is uncertain at best and they might well disappear if no action was taken by the Pakistani government within the next six months. Alternatively, the Pakistani detainees are transferred to Afghan custody where, according to a report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, torture is widespread.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2012

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