Hicks,Habib remain in X-ray torture chambers.Hicks nearly one year.
FBI's secret detention of suspect alarms Pakistan
America's hunt for Osama bin Laden, and the extra-judicial methods used by
intelligence agents in rounding up his alleged associates, face a new
challenge in Pakistan.
It centres on the secret detention of a British-trained orthopaedic
surgeon, Dr Amir Aziz. American investigators suspect he provided medical
treatment to Bin Laden and al-Qa'ida members in Afghanistan before the
attack on the World Trade Centre.
Yesterday a High Court judge in Lahore ordered the Pakistan Interior
Ministry to "cause the production" of the doctor in his court next Tuesday,
setting the stage for a possible showdown.
Dr Aziz, 46, who used to treat the Pakistan cricket team, was taken away by
FBI and Pakistani intelligence agents during a raid on his hospital office
in Lahore on 21 October. His relatives have not seen him since. They have
also not been told why he was detained or where he is.
The case has generated strong emotions in Lahore in the eastern state of
Punjab, which is widely seen as Pakistan's intellectual capital and a
stronghold of democratic opposition to General Pervez Musharraf's military
rule.
The order by the judge, Tassadaq Hussain Jilani, was the court's second
attempt to get the government to produce the doctor in response to a habeas
corpus petition from Dr Aziz's elderly mother and a pro-democracy political
party, a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League.
Last week the judge – who had earlier passed an injunction barring the
doctor's extradition – told the Interior Ministry to produce the doctor
before him yesterday. It failed to do so, asking for more time on the basis
that it was not sure of Dr Aziz's whereabouts.
Central to the issue is the role of Pakistan's Inter- Services Intelligence
(ISI). Its agents, to the annoyance of many Pakistanis, have been working
with the FBI in tracking down and detaining suspected Islamist militants.
Scores of Pakistanis have spent months being interrogated, without trial or
charge, at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – a practice widely
seen in Pakistan as a violation of sovereignty.
The doctor's family and lawyers believe the ISI knows where he is being
held. They have not been impressed by the Interior Ministry's pleadings
that one reason it has been unable to track down Dr Aziz is because the ISI
does not come under its remit.
Nor has Judge Jilani. He declared that he was "not satisfied" and warned
the government that its citizens, "even those accused of a serious crime",
are entitled to the due process of law.
His court "shall see to it" that Dr Aziz is provided with his rights, he
told a crowded courtroom. "People owe their allegiance to the state because
it promises them security and justice. If people lose faith in state
institutions, you can imagine the consequences."
All sides in the case have so far avoided an all-out confrontation, which
could stoke up the anger and resentment Pakistan about the so-called war on
terror.
Why the Americans are so interested in Dr Aziz remains unclear. Pakistan's
Dawn newspaper, quoting his unnamed colleagues, said that he operated on
Bin Laden in Afghanistan two years ago. If this is true, the Americans are
certain to want to discover all they can about this.
Dr Aziz's relatives in Lahore say he went to Afghanistan to do voluntary
work at the Kabul Medical Centre. But they said he did so openly. He also
travelled to Kosovo to work during the crisis there.
He is a devout Muslim. One of the lawyers fighting his case, Ehsan Wyne,
described him as "a religious and philanthropic person, but not a
fundamentalist or an extremist".
There were unsourced news reports immediately after his arrest that he was
accused of supplying anthrax to Islamist militants. Other accounts were
even more vague, suggesting that he might have been involved in assisting
al-Qa'ida to develop biological and chemical weapons.
These allegations were dismissed as "absolutely baseless" yesterday by the
doctor's brother, Dr Muhammad Ayub, a Lahore cardiologist. He told The
Independent that Dr Aziz was a prominent and busy surgeon, who trained in
London and Edinburgh in the 1980s.
He was not connected with any political organisation, he said. "He is an
orthopaedic surgeon who I think may not even know the chemical formula for
water. He is concerned with people's bones."
Source: Independent
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