The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Wednesday decided to appoint amicus curiae in an Intra-Court Appeal (ICA) against extradition of a Pakistani origin US national Talha Haroon to the United States, who is allegedly involved in hatching a conspiracy to carry out a terrorism activity in New York. A division bench of IHC comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hussan Aurangzeb heard the petition wherein the defense counsel had completed his arguments while a deputy attorney general was directed to assist the court after holding consultations with the Attorney General of Pakistan.
During the hearing, the deputy attorney general requested the court to defer the matter as he could not hold consultation with the attorney general who is currently abroad. Then, the court said that it has decided to appoint amicus curiae in this matter and adjourned the proceedings. During the previous hearing, Justice Maingul Hassan had observed that the offences with which the accused has been charged are not extradition offences because they are neither mentioned in the treaty nor in the schedule of the act.
He added how a person can be surrendered to another country who has been charged for non-extraditable offences and directed the deputy attorney general to satisfy the court on this point. The petitioner being aggrieved of findings of inquiry officer and order of the Ministry of Interior, approached the IHC which vide a judgment dated 03.05.2019 disposed of the same with a direction to inquiry officer to conclude the inquiry within a period of 60 days, afresh. Hence, he has filed this intra-court appeal against the aforementioned judgment.
He added that the petition filed by the appellants was disposed of by the learned single judge without any direction or order for discharging and releasing the appellant's son. The petitioner's counsel Idrees Ashraf Advocate adopted in the ICA that the learned single judge has failed in appreciating the point, regarding admissibility of evidence, raised before him. It was contended that extradition request being faulty could not be granted because the evidence attached with the criminal complaint was entirely inadmissible either being hearsay or in the form of affidavits which were inadmissible unless the deponents were produced for cross-examination. The learned single judge through the impugned judgment has examined the latter part of the contention relating to affidavits but totally ignored the first part of the contention which was about hearsay.
He added that it is very respectfully submitted that as per criminal complaint, the appellant is a high-level target and active member of IS (Islamic State) but it is very surprising that the requesting state has not placed any evidence relating to the connections of the appellant with the IS. The counsel continued that it is also submitted that the whole case revolves around encrypted electronic communications but no Internet Protocol (IP) address of appellant's laptop has been mentioned in the complaint to identify that the instrument through which the communications were made belonged to the appellant.
He contended that the learned single judge has failed in considering, deliberating and giving finding on the fact that Talha Haroon was not arrested in accordance with the provisions contained in Section 5 and Section 8 of the Extradition Act, 1972. The respondents made a false statement through reply by stating that Talha Haroon was arrested in pursuant to the warrants of arrest issued by the enquiry magistrate on 18.11.2016.
The fact of the matter is that the Appellant No 2 was picked up by the security agencies in Quetta. He remained missing for almost three months and faced brutal torture. The respondents took this matter very casually and did not shy to file reply containing incorrect date of the arrest of the appellant. This is also surprising that the constitutional courts which jealously guard the life and liberty of persons or citizens have ignored this point.
Therefore, he prayed to the court that the impugned judgment to the extent of fresh decision of enquiry magistrate may kindly be suspended. He further requested to release Talhar Haroon from custody till pending adjudication of the instant appeal.
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