Pakistan relents on extradition treaty
Pakistan has assured India that it will look into the possibility of signing an extradition treaty, so that people wanted for various crimes on both sides can be brought to justice. Pakistan will also consider India's request to release Sarabjit Singh, who is currently lodged in a Lahore jail.
“Both sides [India and Pakistan] have agreed, in principle, to initiate negotiations on a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. The Pakistani side promised to examine the draft of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty given by the Indian side, and revert with comments within two months. They have taken a note of our request, and promised to revert to us,” Home Secretary R.K. Singh told journalists here.
A brief history of MLAT (a SAARC mechanism) will be in context here.
In the April 2007 SAARC Summit at New Delhi, Pakistan & Bangladesh were the only countries that did not want an “extradition clause” in the regional Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) in Criminal Matters that was proposed to fight terror. All the other member counties welcomed the MLAT. Pakistan's objection was that 'extradition' must fall under 'bilateralism' and not under regional cooperation. It is obvious why Pakistan articulated that way. But, it also contradicted and said that it was not averse to discussing extradition for combating narcotics trafficking, money laundering and other trans-border crimes
except terrorism because there was no proper definition of 'terrorism'. Like Ms. Burkha Dutt believes, 'one man's terror is another man's freedom fight'. Bangladesh's objection was also along expected lines as their DGFI was then collaborating with the ISI against India. The MLAT was finally agreed upon in the 15th SAARC meet at Colombo in c. 2008, but even by c. 2011, Pakistan had not ratified it and so it is not in force. Even after the acceptance in Colombo, there is no consensus on participation by the requesting parties’ security officers in evidence-taking or on extradition which has to be only through bilateral treaties still. In the 2007 SAARC meet at New Delhi, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri strongly differed on the idea of including terrorism and extradition in a multilateral treaty demanding that they be negotiated bilaterally between member countries instead.
But, at a bilateral level, the mechanism established at the Additional-Secretary level on counter-terrorism, JATM (Joint Anti Terror Mechanism) after the 7/11 Mumbai commuter train bombings, has not yielded any results at all. Pakistan has little incentive to make these proposals work. The Pakistani diplomats, in complete violation of Geneva conventions, have directly supported terrorism against both India and Afghanistan. Thus, the Pakistani approach to taking action against the terrorists is very selective. For similar reasons, it is also protecting some of the killers of Bangabandhu Sheik Mujibur Rehman even though they have been convicted of the assassination and awarded capital punishment in Bangladesh.
The Indian media and the official concerned are probably jumping the gun. It is similar to the announcement of TSP having given the MFN status to India or the case of Chidambaram triumphantly proclaiming the imminent reception of ‘voice samples’ after the SAARC conference in Islamabad in 2009. Another drama by Pakistan like the Lakhvi case discussed just above.
Upping the ante, India also gave fresh evidence against Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed, who allegedly masterminded the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, asking Islamabad to take action against him.
The delegation provided new proof on the involvement of Pakistani nationals. It pointed to evidence given by India besides proof collected by Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), government sources said.
India has given the confessional statement of Ajmal Amir Kasab, now lodged in a Mumbai jail.
Ajmal has categorically told investigators how Hafiz Saeed masterminded the coordinated attacks across India's financial capital in 2008.
India has also given evidence gathered from Pakistani-American terror operative David Headley, sources said.
All these further proof are of no avail. Pakistan would turn around and say that the 'new proof' vindicated its earlier position that the 'earlier proof' were not enough for a court of law and India has realized that only now and in the process has delayed the proceedings in the Pakistani courts by 3 years. It will 'promise' to examine the 'new proof' and will conclude after some time that the new proof was also insufficient because the exemplary Pakistani judiciary operates to high standards of evidence for prosecuting and convicting especially if the accused happen to be Believers waging a jihad against a kafir.
