Afghan writer imprisoned in Peshawar Jail

AG submits report to PHC: Afghan writer imprisoned at Peshawar Jail

* Court says detainee to face charges in court
* Petitioner plans to file another petition to get his brother released

PESHAWAR: NWFP Advocate General (AG) Pir Liaquat Khan submitted a report before the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday and confirmed Afghan writer Abdur Rahim Muslim Dost’s detention at the Peshawar Central Prison, saying the Khyber Agency political authorities charged him under the 14 Foreigners Act and 40 Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR).
A PHC division bench comprising of Chief Justice Tariq Pervaiz Khan and Justice Syed Maroof Khan avoided hearing arguments of the petitioner’s lawyer about who had picked him up. “We don’t go by the details on who arrested the Afghan writer and where he was kept. He is now in the PHC jurisdiction and would be treated in accordance with the law,” Justice Khan observed.
The PHC bench disposed of the writ petition after the Afghan writer’s whereabouts were made known to his family. “In the writ petition, the petitioner had sought his brother’s whereabouts. Now the detainee will be produced in court and face charges levelled by the Landi Kotal APA (Agency Political Authority),” the court announced.
The bench observed that Dost might challenge the charges levelled against him by the political authorities through another writ petition in the PHC. After the court’s decision, Muslim Dost’s brother Syed Mohammad told Daily Times that charges levelled by the political administration against Dost were false and that he would challenge it through another writ petition. “We are thankful to the court which recovered my brother from the agencies,” he added. The same PHC bench had directed the NWFP AG on Tuesday to submit a report on Wednesday regarding Dost’s detention under the Khyber Agency administration and later shifted him to the Peshawar Central Prison.
Syed Mohammad said personnel of the Crime Investigation Department (CID) police picked up Dost on September 29, 2006. He said that after detaining Dost for nine months, officials of a federal intelligence agency blindfolded Dost and took him to several police stations, including Nasir Bagh Police Station, to implicate him in a terrorism case. He said after police’s refusal to register a false case against Dost, the agencies handed Dost over to the political authorities. He said the political authorities charged Dost under the 14 Foreigners and 40 FCR, at the request of the agencies. The petitioner’s lawyer contended that the detainee had never been charged with any offence, nor had he been produced before any court, as required by the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 1898, “which by itself makes the detention illegal,” he added.
45 year old Dost has co-authored a Pashto book called “Da Guantanamo Matay Zaulanai” (The broken chains of Guantanamo), published in September 2006. He has blamed the Pakistani secret agencies in his book for atrocities and playing into the hands of the US. “My brother was tortured by both the US forces and Pakistani agencies,” the petitioner said, adding that both brothers, through their book, showed the real face of the intelligence agencies and the inhuman treatment meted out to them by the US forces during detention.
He added that agencies’ personnel visited their house few days back and expressed their anger over the book’s publication, which had charged the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) by name. Dost and his younger brother Badruzzaman Badr spent three years in US custody at Bagram Airbase, Kandahar Airport and then at Camp X-Ray in Cuba. He was arrested from Peshawar on November 17, 2001 after the fall of the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Upon release on September 24, 2004 both brothers published a 500-page book about imprisonment at the Guantanamo Bay and other detention camps as prisoners. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Dost used to edit several magazines published from Peshawar and has authored 37 books on politics, religion and poetry. staff report