By Ali Raza & Mumtaz Alvi & Saeed Niazi & Waqar Satti in The News, Sept 3, 2023
ISLAMABAD/ LONDON/LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has revoked the services of Geoffrey Robertson KC after announcing that PTI Chairman Imran Khan has hired the British lawyer to represent him in international courts in cases related to “unlawful detention and human rights abuses”. But the PTI deleted the tweet within hours and terminated the services of the lawyer after criticism in the media.
On 1st September, Doughty Street International tweeted: “Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan and PTI has appointed the eminent human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson KC of Doughty Street Chambers to advise and represent him in international courts in relation to unlawful detention and human rights abuses.”
The PTI responded from its official Twitter with confirmation that Geoffrey Robertson KC had been hired. The PTI announced: “PTI chairman, former prime minister Imran Khan has appointed the eminent human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson KC of Doughty Street Chambers to advise and represent him in international courts in relation to unlawful detention and human rights abuses.”
A PTI source in Islamabad said that the decision to hire Geoffrey Robertson KC was taken by Imran Khan on the advice of Omar Ayub Khan, Zulfi Bukhari and Imran Khan’s lawyers in Pakistan after consulting “some important people in the UK”.
Imran Khan’s adviser for international affairs Sayed Zulfi Bukhari quoted PTI’s tweet of hiring Geoffrey Robertson KC and said: “Geoffrey Robertson KC is a world-renowned human rights lawyer and has represented many hundreds of people who have suffered human rights abuses including unlawful detention. He successfully represented President Lula da Silva of Brazil at the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva for the human rights and legal abuses he suffered by a biased judiciary in Brazil. He enjoys a distinguished career as a trial and appellate counsel, an international judge, and author of leading books on trials for human rights and global justice. IA soon the injustices will be exposed.”
PTI leader and Imran Khan’s former adviser Shahbaz Gill said: “After getting disappointed from Chief Justice Bandial and his courts, now the case of our captain will be fought in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), international lawyers have been engaged.”
However, Doughty Street Chambers said it had been told by PTI that Geoffrey Robertson’s services will not be required due to criticism in Pakistan. A source at the chambers said that Geoffrey Robertson KC held meetings with PTI leaders Omar Ayub Khan, Zulfi Bukhari and Imran Khan’s lawyers before deciding to hire the UK lawyer to take Imran Khan’s case to the United Nations. The source said that Geoffrey Robertson KC was paid in advance for his initial work on Imran Khan’s case.
Doughty Street Chambers said it had deleted the engagement tweet on the request of PTI leaders who hired the lawyer. It said that the chambers has over 500 lawyers in its panel and provides services on behalf of all lawyers who pay the chambers fees for their services.
As soon as the PTI announced it had hired Geoffrey Robertson KC, there was a lot of criticism in the media that Geoffrey Robertson KC has been involved in campaigns against the Pakistani military and has been propagating false theories about the 1971 war and the breakup of Bangladesh from Pakistan.
London-based journalist Shama Junjeo asked Doughty Street Chambers in response to the original tweet: “International courts? The domain of ICJ is to solve disputes between the states & ICC deals with war crime criminals. How & where are you going to represent him? Is Imran Khan a war criminal or has any member state requested you to intervene that he is their agent in Pakistan?” https://twitter.com/ShamaJunejo/status/ 1697947673242870039?s=20
Last week, PTI announced it has revoked engagements of UK solicitor Rashad Yaqoob, his organisation Human Rights Legal Aid Foundation (HRLAF) and Azhar Siddique, the Pakistan Supreme Court lawyer who is now based in Manchester.
The PTI said the party and Chairman Imran Khan have no association/connection with the organisation HRLAF or Rashad Yaqoob. All communication and engagement, if any, with HRLAF or Mr Yaqoob or any person associated with them by or on behalf of PTI and its chairman is hereby revoked. PTI wants the public at large to be aware that PTI/its chairman does not maintain any link or association with this organisation or person or anyone associated with them nor are in any talks with them, and that no one, including Azhar Siddique, is allowed to appoint any person or organisation on chairman PTI’s or PTI’s behalf for any purpose, including international legal representation. PTI will engage any international legal representation in any matter when required only through its Secretary General”.
Geo News had revealed that Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan had instructed England solicitor Rashad Yaqoob to seek legal recourse through the United Nations (UN) and international courts for his legal cases and also lobby the UN and international bodies to intervene on his behalf at the international and Pakistan level over the events that have followed the May 9 attacks on Pakistan Army installations.
Initially, PTI leaders condemned Rashad Yaqoob for launching a legal action but the evidence established that Rashad Yaqoob was indeed hired to act for Imran Khan and raise funds for the international legal aid to fight cases in UN and other forums and that Rashad Yaqoob was fully authorised with a bulletproof Letter of Instruction (LOI) on behalf of Mr Khan and several further Letters of Instructions from PTI’s top leadership in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, PMLN central leader Attaullah Tarar said the PTI chairman hired the lawyer of Salman Rushdie to represent him in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Addressing a press conference at the party’s Model Town office on Saturday, he said elections will be held after the ECP would complete the new delimitation. Over a question, he said there is no martial law in the country, so elections will be held at all costs.
“Today, people in the country are fed up with inflation. In 4 years, you have not laid a single brick. PTI chairman and Pakistan cannot go together,” he maintained.
Tarar said that the main accused of May 9 wanted to go to the International Court of Justice to sue the country and made Geoffrey Robertson his lawyer, who was a friend of the condemned Salman Rushdie who insulted Islam. “By doing this, PTI chairman has crossed all limits to save his dirty politics,” Tarar said.
Replying to a question, Tarar rejected holding any talks with PTI and said that PTI comprises political elite. He said courts were independent but Ladla (favourite) was allowed to eat home-cooked food and get all facilities in jail, whereas Nawaz Sharif’s physician, Dr Adnan, was not allowed to give him medicines.
Over the inflation, he said the IMF deal was signed by the one who shouted on the stage that he would commit suicide rather than go to the IMF. He said the sixteen months of PMLN government should not be compared with the four-year term of PTI.
The PMLN leader said that after the census, it is mandatory to conduct delimitation of constituencies. “If the mandate is given, the country’s problems will be solved in a very short time,” Tarar claimed, adding that protests against inflation are all political.
He further said that politics should not be associated with religion. The events of May 9 were carried out to please the enemy of the country, they attacked the defence establishment and now they were going to the International Court to defame the country, he repeated.
“If Imran Khan commits a crime, he will have to face the punishment,” he said adding in the May 9 incident, the nieces, sisters and relatives of Imran Khan were also involved.
Attaullah Tarar said the robbery of Rs9 billion from Al-Qadir Trust was clear proof of PTI chairman’s corruption. Azam Khan’s statement was enough to substantiate all actions but despite his crimes, Imran was dragging Pakistan to the International Court of Justice.
A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) spokesperson Saturday refuted outright the reports on the hiring of a foreign law firm to raise the ‘worst human violations’ in Pakistan in international courts.
He claimed that the PTI Chairman Imran Khan never supported any such move even in the face of the worst state operation, oppression and violation of the Constitution and law in the country.
In a strong reaction to media reports, he vehemently condemned the ‘reign of terror unleashed’ on the PTI leaders and its workers in the country. However, about the misleading reports being circulated in the media about the hiring of a foreign law firm, he said that there was no truth in the reports.
He made it clear that neither the PTI approached any judicial forum outside Pakistan nor has any intention to do so in future. However, he expressed disappointment over the failure of the justice system to rein in the ‘rising fascism, lawlessness, widespread brutalities and open violation of the law of the land’.
The spokesperson stated that even then, PTI demanded justice from the Pakistan judicial system and wanted it to take the much-needed measures to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law.
He said the gravity of the situation could be judged from the fact that the Chairman of the largest, most popular, and the only federal political party of the country, Imran Khan, was in prison in sheer violation of the law, facing the worst political vendetta in the history of the country.
Similarly, he said that PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi was also under the constant attack of extra-constitutional and legal revenge, adding that PTI President Pervaiz Elahi was brazenly rearrested and jailed yesterday in sheer violation of the clear order of Lahore High Court.
The PTI spokesperson said that PTI South Punjab President Senator Aon Abbas Buppi was forced to quit the PTI, subjected to severe pressure and violence after ten days of forced disappearance.
Moreover, he said that PTI Sindh President Haleem Adil Sheikh was arrested despite the Peshawar High Court’s bail order, while PTI North Punjab President Sadaqat Ali Abbasi was picked up by unknown persons yesterday.
He stated there were dozens of political prisoners including Ali Muhammad Khan, Shehryar Afridi and Shandana Gulzar, who had been repeatedly rearrested and subjected to the worst mental and physical torture in defiance of court orders.
He went on to say that PTI had been on the receiving end of the state’s violation of the Constitution and the law for the past 17 months. He demanded that it was high time the judicial system of Pakistan should start delivering justice and taking steps to uphold the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law in the country.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1106333-pti-revokes-services-of-another-uk-lawyer-for-un-case
