IHC appoints amici curiae in Dr Aafia case

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court (IHC) has appointed two amici curiae in the case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui to assist the court besides coordinating with the ministry of foreign affairs.

A single bench of Islamabad High Court IHC comprising Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaque Khan here Friday heard the constitutional petition of Dr Fowzia Siddiqui. The court had asked the MoFA to provide the list of leading Pakistani lawyers living in the USA so as to seek help from them in this case.

However, Additional Secretary (America) MoFA told the court that they have no such credible record about the leading Pakistani lawyers living in the USA. He said some people after getting the US nationality renounce the Pakistani nationality and hence they don’t have a credible record about the Pakistanis living in the USA.

However, the court appointed two amici curiae, Ms. Zainab Janjua & Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif, to assist the ministry of foreign affairs in legal communicating about this case with the US administration and the American lawyer of Aafia Siddiqui Clive Stafford Smith.

The court order said that MOFA’s responses are always undated & unnumbered despite clear orders in the last hearing. MOFA does not have any visibility on the diaspora of Pakistani lawyers in US law firms.

However, talking to media outside the court premises, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader former Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan said that we hope that the court would dole out justice in this case. He said due to struggle in courts; parliament, media and mass circles Dr Aafia Siddiqui would be hopefully backed home soon. He said in the session of the Senate on March 7 he had raised this issued strongly and the foreign minister Ishaque Dar had asked him to tell the ways and means to further the case. He said that he has handed this letter to Dar and also handed him another letter for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in which mentioning four political options about the case of Dr Aafia.

He said he has urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to take steps that Aafia Siddiqui be shifted from notorious FMC Carswell prison to some normal jail where her basic human rights could be respected.