Another undertrial prisoner’s video causes uproar

[Zahoor Raja-Jani]

RAWALPINDI/KARACHI: The emergence of what appears to be a video confession by Khalid Shamim — one of the suspects in the Imran Farooq murder case — has caused uproar in official and political circles.

Shamim, who is currently being held at the Adiala jail in the garrison city, alleges in the video that MQM chief Altaf Hussain was involved in Imran Farooq’s murder.

“When Imran Farooq’s body was brought back to Pakistan, he [Altaf] called Mustafa Kamal and said, ‘The job has been done’,” the prisoner can be heard saying.

Shamim, who appeared to be in good health but seemed to be slurring his words, also said that Altaf Hussain had also threatened Mr Kamal, because he felt threatened by him.

The video, aired during Wednesday’s broadcast of Shahzaib Khanzada’s show on Geo News, is not the first time a video of an under-custody individual, allegedly linked to the MQM, has appeared in the media.

Earlier, a video confession of death-row convict Saulat Mirza had appeared on the media hours before he was due to be executed.

Mirza, who was sentenced to death for the murder of former KESC boss Shahid Hamid, had alleged in a video that former ports and shipping minister Babar Ghauri had ordered the assassination.

On Thursday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ordered an inquiry into the leaked video, and the jail superintendent’s statement was also recorded.

According to a statement issued by the interior ministry, the minister also directed authorities to investigate whether the jail administration was involved in the making of the video, and whether it was genuine.

Sources said that a senior federal government official recorded the statement of the jail superintendent and other prison officials.

Deputy Inspector General (Prisons) Shahid Saleem Baig told Dawn that an inquiry was under way and Jail Superintendent Saeedullah Gondal had already recorded his statement. He said that while the prisoner had been meeting his family, nobody was allowed to record a video inside the high-security barracks, no matter what the circumstances.

Shamim is currently being held in the high-security barracks of the Adiala jail and has been undergoing treatment for a skin condition, he said. The DIG said he was also allowed to meet his family regularly, according to the prison schedule.

The interior minister has asked for a report on the matter within the next couple of days.

Sources said that in his statement, the jail superintendent claimed that the video did not appear to have been recorded in prison, as the background did not indicate he was inside the prison facility at the time of the recording.

Earlier, in January of this year, the interior minister suspended the police officer in-charge of Khalid Shamim’s security for talking to the media during the trial.

It’s a mockery of justice, says MQM
Reacting to the allegations contained in the video, MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar called upon the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of the recording and airing of the video statement of a high-profile prisoner, saying that the statement made a mockery of the law and the country’s justice system.

Speaking at a press conference at the party’s Azizabad headquarters on Thursday, he said Shamim’s video statement was part of “the MQM’s media trial”.

“Who has recorded the statement of a person who is in custody ... who has provided the script to Khalid Shamim to read and who has issued his statement to TV channels? The nation wants an answer to these questions,” Dr Sattar exclaimed.

He said the channels that had aired the statement should inquire what the legal and judicial value of such a statement was and whether it behoved a responsible and independent media to broadcast the video.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2016
http://www.dawn.com/news/1255154/another-undertrial-prisoners-video-causes-uproar

 

[sylvester conception]

Saulat Mirza Mock Execution Video

Owing to the government’s zero-tolerance policy on terrorism – in December 2014 the moratorium on carrying out death sentences, enforce since the last ten years due to inherent flaws in Pakistan’s criminal justice system was lifted. Initially, only persons involved in acts of terrorism against the state were to be hanged, but after the Peshawar school massacre – the ban on civilian executions too was lifted.

Then on the night of 18th March 2015, a mock execution video of a condemned man was aired on television channels to homes across Pakistan. The video showed Saulat Ali a.k.a Saulat Mirza a convicted assassin with ties to a political party on death row since 1999 seated on a chair in a cloistered room hours before he is to be hanged in Balochistan’s infamous Maach Jail for the self confessed 1997 murder of a utility company chief in Karachi.

Head draped in a white scarf, with stubble and puffed eye-bags, sobbing and willfully admitting to murder and carrying out attacks on law enforcement personnel, Mirza in the video shown pleading for a stay of his execution in exchange for revealing the identity of his associates involved in countless murders in Karachi over the decades

This video of Saulat Mirza on death row - making a condemned man believe he is to be executed within the next hour or less is unprecedented in legal history and highlights the cruelty of Pakistani authorities involved in this mock execution video and broadcasting it to homes across Pakistan. After the video Saulat Mirza was further tormented when Pakistani authorities constantly kept shuttling his execution date prior to his actual execution.

Medical and legal experts opine that tactics that cause convicts on death row to imagine their imminent execution within hours, days or weeks as inhumane. Apart from the rapidly changing execution dates, the isolation on death row and the sheer hopelessness of events way beyond the condemned man control makes him stop fighting his conviction or to readily admit guilt in a desperate bid to escape the agonizing desolateness and hopelessness on death row.

Legal experts in Pakistan also state that testimony of a condemned man on death row is by default suspect, where the question of motive arises and therefore the validity of a condemned man’s testimony bears no legal weight, and especially when not recorded in the presence of a magistrate as prescribed under Pakistani law.

Furthermore the most cruel and distressing aspect of Saulat Mirza’s mock execution video was that he was purposefully tormented prior to his actual execution and the rights of a condemned man violated – also it is most shameful that there was not a single word from the judiciary, civil society, human rights groups or Pakistani press condemning this mock execution video and gross violation of the rights of a man on death row.

One only wonders if this mock execution video is part of some grand strategy to intimidate or rattle terrorists into submission or was it a deliberate act to portray Pakistan as merciless, ruthless and lawless country.

Either way the mock execution video of Saulat Mirza showed a gross violation of all laws, conventions and norms governing the rights of the condemned in Pakistan.

Saulat Mirza was finally hanged on 12 May 2015 at 4:30 am