Ex-MP bailed on terror charges

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Peter Tatchell has sent us this:

Pakistan ex-MP bailed on terror charges
London court releases Baluchistan human rights activist

Former Baluch Government Minister charged with terror offences

Pakistani bid to frame nationalists and silence critics?

London – 18 April 2008

An ex-MP and government minister from Pakistan, Hyrbyair Marri, has
been released on bail after spending four months in London's high
security Belmarsh Prison.

Bail was granted by High Court judge, David Calvert-Smith QC, and Mr
Marri was able to return to his west London home on Wednesday night,
16 April.

Mr Marri is due for trial in London at the Central Criminal Court in
October, on charges under the Firearms Act and the Terrorism Act 2000.
He is pleading not guilty and is currently under-going a series of
pre-trial hearings.

Mr Marri is a former MP and was the Minster for Construction and Works
in the provincial assembly of the Pakistan region of Baluchistan from
1997 to 1998. He fled to Britain, fearing arrest, torture and possible
assassination by the Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf.

Mr Marri's father was invited to London for the Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.

His uncle is Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the current UN Special
Representative to Sudan and the former Pakistan Ambassador to the
United States.

His wife is the grand daughter of the first Prime Minister of Iraq in
the 1920s.

His brother, Balach Marri, was murdered on 21 November 2007 by the
Pakistan army.

His other brother, Mehran Baluch, who lives in London and is the
Baluch Representative to the UN Human Rights Council, was the subject
of an extradition attempt by Pakistan last year on trumped up charges.

"The actions against these three brothers look like a systematic
attempt to target this family and crush three major voices of Baluch
dissent," said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.

Mr Tatchell is supporting Mr Marri and his co-accused, another Baluch
human rights activist, Faiz Baluch, who remains in Belmarsh Prison
pending the finalisation of his bail conditions.

"We know that last year President Musharraf was demanding the arrest
and extradition of Baluch exiles in London," added Mr Tatchell.

"That is what he is in the process of getting. When he was in London
to meet Gordon Brown in January 2008 Musharraf held a press conference
for Pakistani journalists where he denounced Mr Marri as a "terrorist"
and indicated that he was seeking and expecting the extradition of Mr
Marri to Pakistan. He praised the British government and police for
cooperating with his dictatorship.

"I doubt this case was initiated by the Metropolitan Police. It is
very unlikely that they, off their own bat, stumbled on an alleged
terror plot by Mr Marri and Mr Baluch. It is almost certain that
police in London were pressured and fed false information by
Musharraf's police and secret service, who have long wanted to silence
Mr Marri.

"Both Mr Marri and Mr Baluch are well-known campaigners for the
independence / self-government of Baluchistan. A former British
Protectorate, it was granted its independence in 1947 but was then
invaded and forcibly annexed by Pakistan a few months later, in 1948.

"I know both the detained men.

"They are Baluchistan nationalists and human rights activists. We
worked together to expose Pakistan's persecution of the Baluch people.
The defendants have never expressed to me any support or sympathy for
terrorism. All our campaigns have been lawful and peaceful. I would be
very surprised if either man was involved in any terror plot.

"Mr Marri is a member of one of the most distinguished and esteemed
Baluch families and a former government minister in Baluchistan. He is
a rather unlikely terrorist.

"These terror charges are probably at the instigation of the Pakistan
government, which has long sought to silence London critics of its
repressive occupation of Baluchistan.

"President Musharraf has been long pressing Britain for the
extradition of Baluch nationalists exiled in London.

"If these men are extradited they will never get a fair trial and they
could face a death sentence.

"Britain and Pakistan have been in secret negotiations for a terrorist
prisoner swap. The UK police want to extradite Rashid Rauf from
Pakistan. They are keen to question him in connection with the 2006
plot to blow-up transatlantic airliners. Mr Rauf mysteriously escaped
from police custody in Pakistan in December last year.

"In return for the extradition of Mr Rauf, the Pakistani government
has been demanding the extradition from Britain of several Baluch
nationalists, in order to halt their highly effective campaign which
has exposed Pakistan's brutal misrule in Baluchistan. This misrule
includes detention without trial, torture, extra-judicial executions
and the bombing of civilian villages suspected of being sympathetic to
the Baluch independence movement, using US-supplied Cobra attack
helicopters and F-16 fighter planes.


The flawed prosecution case against Mr Marri and Mr Baluch

"I have been in court during the pre-trial hearings, respectively at
Westminster Magistrate's Court and the Central Criminal Court.

"I heard the prosecution's outline evidence against the two men. I
find it flimsy, circumstantial and flawed.

"When first setting out the case against Mr Marri the prosecutor made
no mention of Mr Marri's esteemed family background and connections.
Nor did he mention his service as an MP and government minister. To
me, this looked like an attempt to give the court a misleading
impression of Mr Marri.

"The prosecution claimed that Marri and Baluch had incited acts of
terrorism but it provided no evidence of who had been incited and how
they were incited. None of the documents read out in court constituted
an incitement to terrorism. Most were website press reports and news
releases, many of which are available on dozens of media websites.

"Some of the allegations relate to the alleged viewing of "terrorist"
websites. It is, however, not proven who visited these websites.
Moreover, a landmark UK legal judgement on 13 February 2008 ruled that
merely visiting and viewing such websites is not a crime.

"The allegation that Mr Marri possessed a "firearm" weapon that could
be used for terrorist purposes has been questioned by a relative, who
claims it was a self-defence pepper spray device, similar to the ones
carried by many women to protect themselves against muggers and
rapists.

"It is said by friends that Mr Marri had acquired this pepper spray
because he feared violent attack by Pakistani government agents on
himself and his family. His fears are real and credible, given the
recent kidnapping and assassination of Baluch nationalists by the
Pakistan authorities.

"The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) alleged that the men had hundreds
of foreign credit cards. Their friends say these are phone top-up
cards and phone credit cards, presumably for use when the men travel
in support of their human rights work in Britain and other countries.

"Prosecutors made a big issue of the fact that there was £18,000 in
cash in Mr Marri's house. Possession of such a sum of money is not a
crime. His family have explained that this money was sent from
Pakistan to pay for his elderly mother's cancer treatment in the UK
and for his children's school costs in this country. Receipts
indicating such payments were presented to the court on 1 February
this year.

The CPS cited Mr Marri's possession of up to 20 mobile phones. Some of
these belonged to various family members and others were used to make
calls to human rights campaigners inside Baluchistan. These
campaigners are at risk of arrest by the Pakistani authorities who
target Baluch activists for assassination, arrest and torture. Having
dedicated mobile phones for certain contacts is one way to minimise
the risk of calls being intercepted, traced and the persons phoned in
Baluchistan being arrested.

"During the pre-trial hearings, every time Mr Marri and Mr Baluch
refute the allegations against them with reasonable explanations, the
police and CPS come up with new vague, circumstantial allegations. The
police and CPS then plead for more time to search computer hard drives
and trace overseas contacts.

"The latest allegation made on 1 February was that the men have some
unspecified sinister contacts in the Czech Republic.

"It is possible that the police know something about these men that I
don't. But if they have been leading a secret double life and were
engaged a terrorist plot, where is the evidence?

"Based on the purely circumstantial, uncorroborated evidence made
against the two men thus far, it is outrageous that they were ever
detained in maximum security conditions. They should have been granted
bail last December.

"The case looks like a re-run of the Lofti Raissi fiasco – with
innocent men caught up in a web of suspicion that has probably been
woven by the notorious Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI.

"I urge the British government to not give in to pressure from the
Pakistani dictator, President Musharraf. The extradition of these men
would result in their arrest, torture, imprisonment and probable
execution.

"The Pakistan authorities have repeatedly arrested peaceful Baluch
nationalists and human rights campaigners on trumped up charges.

"Earlier this year, there was an attempt by Pakistan to secure the
extradition from Britain of Mehran Baluch, the Baluch representative
to the UN Human Rights Council. The charges against him were false.
Mehran Baluch is Hyrbyair's brother.

See this Guardian newspaper report on the case, 28 March 2007:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2044324,00.html

"These arrests look like another stitch-up orchestrated by the
Musharraf regime, which wants to crush those who speak out against
Pakistan's murderous oppression of the Baluch people," concluded Mr
Tatchell.

The lawyer representing Hyrbyair Marri is Jim Nichol: 0207 272 8336 /
07802 812 787.

The lawyer representing Faiz Baluch is Fadi Daoud: 020 7266 4333 /
07956 42 51 70.


For further information:

Dr Lakhumal Luhana, World Sindhi Congress, Baluch and Sindhi human
rights campaigner: 07912 219 471
lakhuluhana@yahoo.co.uk

Samad Baloch, Baluchistan Action Committee (UK): 0782 508 7032

Current news on the Baluch freedom struggle: www.balochvoice.com and
www.balochwarna.org These are the websites that allegedly incite
terrorism.


Background briefing

Read this Guardian article about Pakistan's occupation of Baluchistan:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/08/pakistan_ce lebrates_baluchista.html

Watch this internet TV interview with Mehran Baluch, the Baluch
representative at the UN Human Rights Council:

http://doughty.gdbtv.com/player.php?h=6047f4ff19c2da48b68fed7e067a3a5f


Baluchistan freedom struggle

By Peter Tatchell

Baluchistan was a former British Protectorate. It secured its
independence in 1947. But less than a year later Pakistan invaded and
annexed the newly-independent state of Baluchistan. The Baluch people
have, however, never given up their struggle to reassert their
freedom.

After six decades of occupation and bloody repression, Pakistan is
once again escalating its war against the people of Baluchistan,
detaining without trial thousands of Baluchs and executing hundreds
more. Because the governments of Britain and the United States want
Pakistan as an ally in the "war on terror" they are arming Pakistan
and tacitly acquiescing with its suppression of the Baluch people.

The international community is looking the other way, allowing the
Baluch people to be suppressed and ignoring their right to
self-determination.

ENDS