Pak intelligence agencies can’t be made respondents in constitutional plea: Spy chiefs

ISLAMABAD - The intelligence agencies of Pakistan cannot be made respondents in constitutional petitions, the heads of these agencies have said.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Moulvi Anwarul Haq submitted a reply in the Supreme Court’s Registrar office on behalf of the chiefs of the intelligence agencies, stating that the eleven missing prisoners of the Adiala Jail were not in their custody, The News reported.

In their reply, the heads of intelligence agencies also stated that they or the intelligence agencies could not be made respondents in the constitutional petitions, and that the petitions filed by the legal heirs of the missing prisoners or other missing persons were not maintainable.

On November 12, a three-member Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had issued notices to the heads of secret agencies, seeking explanation over eleven missing prisoners of the Adiala Jail, allegedly abducted by the intelligence agencies. The notices were issued to the heads of the ISI, MI and the IB.

These prisoners were acquitted by the Anti-Terrorism Court in April this year in four different cases, including firing rockets at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, Kamra, and at the plane of former President Pervez Musharraf, a suicide attack on the bus of an intelligence agency personnel in Rawalpindi and the suicide attack on the main entrance of the military headquarters.

Even after acquittal, these prisoners were detained in the jail by the Punjab Home Department. Later, the LHC set aside their detention orders, directing their immediate release and after their alleged abduction by the secret agencies, the LHC ordered registration of a criminal case against the Adiala Jail Superintendent Saeedullah and Deputy Superintendent Khalid Bashir. (ANI)