Uzair’s mother to move ICJ

By Maqbool Ahmed

KARACHI: Mrs Farhat Paracha, whose husband, Saifullah Paracha, disappeared in mysterious circumstances from Karachi Airport on July 5, and son Uzair was charged with helping Al Qaeda operatives’ entry into the US in a New York court last Friday, has decided to move the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague in the Netherlands.

Mrs Paracha’s attorney Nisar A. Mujahid told the Daily Times on Monday that she had instructed him to prepare a plaint making the US and Thai governments respondents. The two countries, Mrs Paracha believes, colluded with each other to kidnap her husband. Mrs Paracha’s petition seeking the whereabouts of her husband is pending in the Sindh High Court wherein notices have been issued to the Thai ambassador in Islamabad and the Thai consul-general in Karachi for Aug 15.

Mr Mujahid said whenever a state or states committed a wrong jointly and severally which was in contravention of international law or any accord or treaty signed or carried under the resolutions of the United Nations, the aggrieved party could move the ICJ and seek remedy.

“International law does not allow anyone’s kidnapping and keeping him in wrongful confinement and withholding information from such person’s family. Whenever a state or states do that the family of that person becomes aggrieved, and it has the right to move the ICJ to seek damages and to get ascertained the vires and illegalities committed by the state or states of international laws and compensation thereof,” he said.

“Mrs Paracha has been aggrieved because of the manner in which her husband has been kidnapped,” he claimed.

“My client wants the ICJ to declare all actions, like kidnapping of her husband, to be illegal and carrying no lawful effect internationally,” he added.

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