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Lawyer says he will continue to
represent Sarabjit
Indignant at
reports that Sarabjit’s family hired new lawyer
 ISLAMABAD:
A Pakistani lawyer, whose no-show led to the Pakistan Supreme Court
dismissing Sarabjit Singh’s review petitions challenging his death
sentence, says he continues to represent the condemned Indian
prisoner on behalf of a Canadian Sikh organisation, and is preparing
to appeal for restoration of the petitions.
Rana Abdul Hamid
showed no interest in Sarabjit’s case, according to him, because of
his job until recently as the Punjab government’s additional
advocate-general. But his tenure as government prosecutor now over,
Mr. Hamid is all fired up by the case even though it is no longer
appears relevant to his fate, which seems more linked to the ups and
downs of India-Pakistan ties.
In a widely quoted
interview in sectins of Indian media, the Lahore-based lawyer was
indignant at reports that Sarabjit’s family had hired a new lawyer
to represent him. It was not Sarabjit’s family that had hired him
but a Canadian Sikh group called the South Asian Human Rights
Organisation headed by Harpal Singh Nagra, Mr. Hamid said.
“I cannot be sacked
by Sarabjit’s family because I was not hired by them. If the case
has to be taken away from me, it has to be done by the organization
that hired me to begin with,” he said. “I remain Sarabjit’s lawyer,
and I will soon be moving the court for restoration of the
petitions.”
Mr. Hamid said he
was in “constant touch” with the group about the case.
On June 24, a
three-judge bench headed by Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed dismissed
Sarabjit’s petitions for “non-prosecution”, in other words,
non-appearance by the lawyer. The bench also made the observation
that there was nothing in the petitions meriting a review of the
1991 death sentence to Sarabjit, upheld by the Supreme Court in
2005.
Following the
dismissal, Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur pronounced a lack of
confidence in the lawyer, and questioning his failure to appear
before the court, announced she had hired a new advocate, Owais
Shaikh, to represent Sarabjit.
Mr. Hamid refuted
the suggestion that he had ignored Sarabjit’s case, and said that
from 2007, when he was contracted by the government for two years,
the case had not been posted for hearing even once.
The first of the
four review petitions had been dismissed in 2006, when he had not
yet been appointed in a government post, and the remaining three
came up for hearing only in the final days of his tenure as
additional advocate-general, he said. So, he said, it was
unreasonable to accuse him of disinterest.
The lawyer, who
said he had met Sarabjit twice in 2006, was hopeful of receiving
certified copies of last week’s decision on Tuesday and of filing a
restoration petition soon after.
But irrespective of
what happens in the court, Sarabjit’s fate is seen as more likely to
be decided by the course of India-Pakistan relations. If the
Pakistan government wants to send a positive signal to
India,
the President can at any stage intervene to have Sarabjit taken off
death row.
As it is, the
implementation of Sarabjit’s death sentence, fixed for April 1,
2008, was put on hold, first for a month and then indefinitely, as
the Pakistan People’s Party took over the reins of government. The
predominant sentiment at that time was that hanging him would
constitute the wrong opening signal to India from the newly elected
government.
There has been no
indication from the government of a change in this position after
the Supreme Court’s dismissal of Sarabjit’s review petitions.
Also, the PPP is
opposed to the death sentence and has declared an intention to
commute the sentences of an estimated 7,000 condemned prisoners
languishing in its jails into life imprisonment.
1
July 2009
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