Following refusal of Interpol to issue red notice to former finance minister Ishaq Dar, the government has begun to explore the possibility of his extradition from the UK as the UK government had previously stated that it would consider Pakistan's request on case-to-case basis.
"The decision not to issue Dar's red warrant was taken by Interpol in its 109th session held in July this year prompting the government to pursue his [Dar] extradition on government-to-government basis. This is allowed under UK laws even though Pakistan has no extradition treaty with Britain", said senior advocate and former National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor Raja Aamir Abbas while talking to Business Recorder.
He said that Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Accountability Shahzad Akbar is currently in London and is pursuing the case. He added the NAB may also file an appeal with Interpol against its decision.
Business Recorder made several attempts to contact Shahzad Akbar head of the Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) and sent a text message to take his point of view over the matter, but did not receive any response from him till the filing of this report.
Barrister Saeedur Rehman stated that before taking any decision Interpol summons the accused and gets his take on the issue. Rehman said that Interpol may have summoned Dar to record his statement. Given that Dar he has also applied for political asylum in UK, he (Dar) may have taken the stance before Interpol officials that it is a politically motivated case.
"If Interpol determines that it is a politically motivated case or a case of death penalty, it declines to arrest the suspect", he said, adding that if it found that it is a criminal case, it issues red notice and circulates it to police of 192 members countries for action against the accused," he said.
When asked about the affidavit submitted by Dar during Musharraf regime, and being a proclaimed offender, Barrister Rehman said that Interpol is not bound to follow any decision taken by any institution in a member country regarding the suspect as they look into the application as per their own rules.
According to a letter issued by Interpol's General Secretariat, 'Mohammad Ishaq, born on 13 May 1950, is not subject to an Interpol red notice or diffusion'.
"After a thorough examination of the elements before it, the commission found that the data challenged raised questions as to compliance with applicable rules. As a result, it considered that the retention of these data in the Interpol information system was not compliant with Interpol's rules and decided that they should be deleted," it said.
The Accountability Court had declared Dar a proclaimed offender for his continued absence from court proceedings in a reference related to having assets beyond known sources of income.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019