Chief Justice of Punjabi Taliban Khawaja Muhammad Sharif of Lahore High Court blocks deportation of terror suspects to the USA
Chief Just of Lahore High Court Khawaja Muhammad Sharif, an ex-employee and loyalist of Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif of PML-N, and a secret member of Jamaat-e-Islami and Hizbut-Tahrir, has once again shown his true colours. Not unlike certain other pro-Jamaat-e-Islami and pro-Taliban judges in Pakistani Courts, this man is a supporter of Punjabi Taliban. He is a close associate of the former ISI-agent (asset) Khalid Khwaja.
LHC orders against detainees deportation
Updated at: 1315 PST, Monday, December 14, 2009
LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) issued order against any possible bid to deport the five Pakistan-origin US nationals detained in Pakistan, Geo News reported Monday.
These people were arrested from Sargodha on a tip-off and later shifted to Lahore for interrogations.
The LHC Chief Justice directed Interior Ministry and the concerned authorities to submit report in this connection on December 17.
The Chief Justice issued this order on the petition filed by Khalid Khawja Advocate, who opined in his plea that the five detainees have not been made to appear before any court in the country; while, it was legally binding to present them in court within 24 hours following their arrest.
The petitioner, fearing that these detainees would be handed to any other country, requested the court to take notice and order their trial here in country in accordance with the Pakistani law.
Source
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) ordered on Monday that five Americans detained from Sargodha who officials said were seeking to join up with militant groups should not be deported. The Chief Justice LHC has also asked the Punjab government to submit a report by December 17.
The petitioner Khwaja Khalid’s lawyer told the court that five American nationals have been questioned by the FBI. He said that they don’t know their whereabouts. He told the court that they might be kept at the Police Traning School Chohang and it is possible they will be deported to America.
The petition by Khwaja Khalid stated that FBI wants to take the detained suspects to America. The suspects were arrested on December 9 and they are still kept in habeas corpus. The detainees are not presented in front of any magistrate yet.
The petitioner has pleaded the court that the suspects should be interrogated by Pakistani authorities rather than FBI. The court blocked any such attempt and stated, “they should not be handed over to the FBI or America or any other country until this petition is decided.” The court has also asked the government to submit a report on December 17. SAMAA
Source
The five men in their 20s from the US state of Virginia were arrested in Sargodha, about 160 km west of Lahore, days after they travelled to Pakistan in a group.
One of the suspects left behind a videotape that appeared to be a farewell statement, accompanied by references to the conflict between the West and the Muslim world.
Pakistani investigators alleged that the five university students were planning to participate in jihad in Afghanistan, and were trying to contact militant outfits for basic training in Pakistan’s restive tribal region near the Afghan border.
Interior minister Rehman Malik hinted over the weekend that the country might extradite the five men to the US, if they were found not guilty of violating any Pakistani law.
The US nationals – of Pakistani, Egyptian, Yemeni and Eritrean origin – were questioned by officials of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US embassy in Islamabad.(DPA)
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The man is a conspiracy theorist
“Road accident conspiracy against CJP”: Justice Sharif
LAHORE/MUZAFFARGARH: Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Khawaja Sharif has said a recent accident of escort cars in the convoy of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was actually a conspiracy against him, a private TV channel reported on Monday.
Referring to the accident that occurred as the CJP was returning to Islamabad after celebrating Eidul Azha in Lahore, Justice Sharif added, “Perhaps it was a warning because the CJP is tightening the noose around powerful mafias.” He said problems facing the country could never be solved until the country’s leadership originated from the
middle class.
Urging the nation to unite against terrorism, the LHC CJ said those who commit suicide bombings could not be called Muslims, APP reported. He praised the armed forces for rendering sacrifices for the country. Justice Sharif said the judiciary would come up to the expectations of the people regarding swift dispensation of justice. He said under the new judicial policy, commissions consisting of young lawyers had been formed at each district.
On the issue of financial trouble being faced by bar associations in South Punjab, the LHC CJ announced setting up of a committee headed by Multan High Court Bar President Qamaruz Zaman Butt to prepare a detailed report in consultation with all the bars. daily times monitor/app
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Lahore High Court: Subservient to the interests of Sharifs and Taliban?
LHC dismisses appeals against by-poll postponement
Thursday, 26 Nov, 2009
LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court dismissed on Wednesday three intra-court appeals against the postponement of by-elections in Punjab, upholding an earlier decision by a single-judge bench.
However, the bench comprising Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Ijazul Ahsan ruled that the provincial government had no constitutional right of hearing before the announcement of the election schedule. The court observed that the provincial government could only assist the election commission about the situation on ground and suggest when and under what arrangements an election might be held.
The provincial government, the bench added, had no right to block announcement of an election schedule by Chief Election Commissioner of Pakistan and insist on its right of hearing.
The court ruled that the writ petition filed by the Punjab government before the single-judge bench was maintainable and the issuance of election schedule by the CEC was justifiable. However, material and views of the provincial government should have been considered by the CEC before announcing the new schedule.
The intra-court appeals were filed by Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rashid Ahmad and Advocates Mohammad Azhar Siddique and Manzoor Ali Gillani.
Meanwhile, Sheikh Rashid announced that he would move the Supreme Court against the decision. He told reporters that the decision was according to his expectations, adding: ‘I expect the same justice from the Supreme Court which it rendered to Nawaz Sharif (PML-N chief).’
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Pakistan Bars Deportation of Detained Americans By SCOTT SHANE and WAQAR GILLANI
Published: December 14, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/world/asia/15pstan.html
LAHORE, Pakistan — Five Muslim American men arrested in Pakistan last week cannot be deported to the United States until their case is reviewed, a Pakistani judge here ruled Monday.
The high court in Lahore ordered provincial authorities in Punjab State to provide a detailed report by Thursday on the arrests of the five young men, whom the police say had traveled to Pakistan to seek training to fight American troops in Afghanistan. So far, Pakistani authorities have not charged the men with any crimes.
The ruling came as new details emerged about how a Taliban recruiter first made contact with the men, one of whom, Ahmed Abdullah Minni, repeatedly posted comments on YouTube praising videos showing attacks on American troops, according to a Pakistani police report.
The report, by a police investigator who questioned the five Americans, said the YouTube postings by Mr. Minni, 20, “became a regular feature” and led the recruiter, a militant known as Saifullah, to send him messages.
The new details regarding Mr. Minni’s alleged Web postings only added to the sense of shock for many who knew him and the other four now accused of traveling to Pakistan to try to join the fight against American forces in Afghanistan.
Just last year, as a member of the wrestling team at West Potomac High School in Virginia, Mr. Minni did not seem the least bit alienated or disaffected, said his wrestling coach, Casey Grubbs.
Mr. Grubbs called Mr. Minni a friendly, hard-working competitor who wrestled his way into the regional tournament in the 130-pound category. “Thinking about him, he would be one of the last people I would put on that list of dangerous people,” Mr. Grubbs said.
In Pakistan, both F.B.I. agents and officers of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence were questioning the men, American citizens who range in age from 18 to 24. Pakistani officials, who are trying to track down the recruiter known as Saifullah, have sent mixed signals about whether the Americans will be deported or held for further questioning. The five have not been charged with a crime.
The interrogation report, written by a Pakistani police official, Abbas Majeed Khan Marwat, and first obtained by ABC News, said the five men “had deep interest in the religion and they were of the opinion that a jihad must be waged against the infidels for the atrocities committed by them against Muslims around the world.”
After Saifullah first made contact with Mr. Minni via comments on YouTube, he exchanged messages with them by leaving draft e-mail messages at a shared Yahoo address. Militants have often used the method to reduce the chance that intelligence agencies will intercept messages.
The police report said officers confiscated the men’s laptops and external hard drives, as well as cellphones and an iPod.
In an interview on Sunday, Mustafa Maryam, who knew the men well from his work as a volunteer youth coordinator at their Alexandria, Va., mosque, said discussions at the youth group avoided political themes.
“We were talking about fasting, marriage, college life, teenage issues,” said Mr. Maryam, 29. “We never talked politics or conflict.”
He said the young men joined other mosque members for “swimming, soccer, basketball, camping and volleyball.” He called the young men “career focused” but not yet independent of their families. “These kids were still with their mothers,” he said.
One of the five men, Waqar Khan, 22, was convicted late last year of stealing packages from a United Parcel Service warehouse where he had worked. He received a year-long suspended sentence, but only two months of supervised probation, pending his “general good behavior,” according to Fairfax County court records.
Friends and acquaintances of another of the men, Ramy Zamzam, 22, a Howard University graduate who entered Howard’s dental school in the fall, said they held him in the highest regard.
Noah Winn-Ritzenberg, who attended middle school and part of high school with Mr. Zamzam and remained a friend, said they often talked about their respective religions, Judaism and Islam.
“Ramy’s always been committed to interfaith friendship and cooperation,” he said. Mr. Winn-Ritzenberg said he thought of Mr. Zamzam as “a person of exceptional integrity and moral character” with too sharp a mind to be “brainwashed” by extremists.
A fellow Howard University student who lived in the same dormitory as Mr. Zamzam called him a kind man who was tolerant of all religious and political beliefs, and said that they often had constructive debates on those topics. The student, who asked not to be identified because university officials have asked students not to comment, is a medical student but said he met Mr. Zamzam when they were undergraduates.
He called Mr. Zamzam “a kind of genius,” who had many friends. “I know who he is and there is no doubt in my mind that he didn’t have anything to do with terrorism,” the friend said.
Once, the friend recalled, joking with Mr. Zamzam, he told him, “You Muslims believe in killing anyone who doesn’t believe like you.”
Mr. Zamzam did not find the joke funny, the student recalled: “He said, ‘No way. That’s not true at all. Most of my friends are Christians. I don’t have anything against them.’ “
Waqar Gillani reported from Lahore, Pakistan, and Scott Shane from Washington. Jodi Kantor contributed reporting from New York, Ginger Thompson from Washington.
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