British terror trial: UK collusion with Musharraf’s dictatorship By Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner, London, UK
Naked Punch – Pakistan – 21 March 2010
http://nakedpunch.com/articles/55
The London trial of Baloch
human rights activists on trumped up terrorism charges revealed high
level collusion between the British government and the dictatorship of
Pervez Musharraf. Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were
threatened: arrest the Baloch exiles in London or Pakistan will halt
all cooperation with Britain in the ‘war on terror.’ This is the story
on how a supposedly democratic western government caved in to the
demands of a military tyrant and attempted to sacrifice two innocent
Baloch rights campaigners – but failed.
Baloch nationalists and human rights defenders, Hyrbyair Marri and Faiz
Baluch, were finally acquitted of terrorism charges in February 2009,
after a two-month trial at Woolwich Crown Court in London.
Mr Marri, the son of the leader of the Marri clan, is a former
Balochistan MP from 1997-2002, and was the Minster for Construction and
Works in the provincial assembly, 1997-1998. He fled to Britain in
2000, fearing arrest, torture and possible assassination by Musharraf’s
men. Mr Baluch is a human rights activist who posts news to Baloch
websites. Both are exiles based in London.
The evidence that emerged during their trial suggests that Marri and
Baluch were framed by the Musharraf dictatorship, in an attempt to
silence their highly effective campaigning against Pakistan’s human
rights abuses in annexed and occupied Balochistan.
The case originated with the Musharraf regime orchestrating fabricated
charges of terrorism against Mr Marri and then pressing the British
authorities to arrest him. Pakistani agents reportedly issued an
ultimatum to the UK government: Future bilateral cooperation in
fighting terrorism would depend on Britain agreeing to arrest and
deport Marri and Baluch to Pakistan. To its credit, the then government
of Tony Blair refused the extradition request, on the grounds that the
terrorism charges against the two men carried a sentence of death and
there were doubts that the men would get a fair trial.
In response, the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies made it
clear that anti-terror cooperation with Britain would be wound down
unless the men’s campaigning was halted. To its shame, the British
government eventually capitulated. It decided that Marri and Baluch
were expendable for the so-called ‘greater good’ of anti-terrorist
cooperation with the Pakistani regime.
Police and security agencies in the UK appear to have initiated the
terrorism charges based on claims, evidence and leads provided to them
by Musharraf’s dictatorship – a dictatorship that the defendants had
long campaigned against. The British authorities chose to ignore the
fact that Musharraf’s men in the Pakistani intelligence agency, the
ISI, are notorious for framing political opponents, especially Baloch
nationalists and human rights defenders.
Marri and Baluch were duly arrested in London in December 2007, just a
couple of weeks after Pakistani agents assassinated Marri’s brother,
Balach Marri, and just a few months after Musharraf demanded that the
British government arrest Baloch activists in London. In exchange for
their arrest, Musharraf offered to hand over Rashid Rauf to the UK,
implying that action against the Baloch activists was a precondition
for surrendering Rauf to the UK authorities, as reported in The
Guardian on 28 March 2007:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/mar/28/pakistan.terrorism
Rauf was wanted in Britain in connection with the 2006 terror plot
involving liquid explosives on trans-Atlantic airliners, which resulted
in the conviction of three men in London in September 2008. He was also
being sought in connection with a murder in the UK.
To soothe Musharraf, Prime Minister Gordon Brown invited him to Downing
Street in January 2008. A day later, the Pakistani dictator held a
press conference for Pakistani journalists in London where he allegedly
denounced Marri as a terrorist and praised the British government and
police for cooperating with his regime.
To the delight of Pakistan’s security agencies, Marri and Baluch were
refused bail and spent many months in London’s high-security Belmarsh
Prison, where al-Qaida suspects are held. They were eventually bailed,
but on very restrictive conditions.
Claims of connivance between British leaders and Musharraf are
credible. For nine years, the UK’s Labour government supported the
Pakistani dictator politically, economically and militarily, despite
him having overthrown a democratically-elected government in 1999. It
sold him the military equipment that his army used to kill innocent
Baloch people. Britain’s main ally, the US, supplied the F-16 fighter
jets and Cobra attack helicopters that Mushaarraf’s army and air force
used to bomb and strafe villages in Balochistan.
Despite the elaborate bid to frame Marri and Baluch, things began to
unravel shortly before their trial began in London in late 2008. The
acting Interior Minister of the then newly-elected democratic
government of Pakistan, Rehman Malik, announced that the terror charges
against Mr Marri in Pakistan had been dropped. Malik stated that the
case against Marri was flawed and had been politically orchestrated by
the Musharraf regime. Although this discredited the whole basis on
which Marri and Baluch were charged in London, the British authorities
pressed on with the trial.
It was obvious that the UK government was still under pressure from
Musharraf’s men. Despite Musharaff being out of office, his
allies were still in power, within Pakistan’s shadowy military and
intelligence agencies. They were demanding that the prosecution
continue. It did, but not the way these forces of darkness had hoped.
During the trial, the defence showed that the British government
collaborated with the illegal, unconstitutional regime of Pervez
Musharraf, which in 1999 overthrew the democratic government of
Pakistan.
This collaboration was shown to include arming the illegal Musharraf
regime to enable it to prosecute an illegal war in Balochistan, where
the Pakistani armed forces have perpetrated war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
During the trial, the judge accepted that the Baloch people are an
oppressed minority, and that they have been victims of war crimes and
crimes against humanity. These crimes include the indiscriminate
bombing of civilian areas, extra-judicial killings, disappearances,
torture, detention without trial and collective punishments such as the
destruction of villages, crops, livestock and wells – all of
which are illegal acts under international law.
Despite this persecution and terrorisation by the Pakistani state, the
judge suggested that the Baloch people do not have the right to use
violence to defend themselves and that anyone who supports or condones
armed resistance groups in Balochistan is endorsing terrorism. Under
Britain’s tough anti-terror laws, even the mere political or moral
approval of armed self-defence is now a serious criminal offence.
The jury was unconvinced by the judges concerns and by the flimsy
circumstantial evidence against Marri and Baluch. They seemed to
understand the oppression of the Baloch people and the collusion
between the British government and the Musharraf dictatorship. By a
clear majority verdict, they acquitted both men.
Speaking after the trial Hyrbyair Marri expressed his satisfaction at the outcome:
“My faith in the British people has been vindicated. The 12 jurors
upheld the values of justice and recognised the Baloch people’s right
to self-defence. They decided that we were no more guilty of terrorism
than Nelson Mandela and the heroes of the anti-Nazi resistance in
occupied Europe. The people of Balochistan will be delighted that the
British courts have ruled that campaigning for democracy, human rights
and self-determination is not a crime.
“The police and prosecution never had a credible case against us. It
was based on a malign misinterpretation of purely circumstantial
evidence. All their evidence against us had an innocent explanation.
The jury agreed. That is why they found us not guilty. The police have
wasted possibly millions of pounds on these pointless, unfounded
allegations of terrorism,” said Mr Marri.
Briefing on human rights abuses in Balochistan
Details of Pakistan’s human rights abuses in Balochistan are well
documented by Pakistani and international human rights groups,
including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=17865
&prog=zgp&proj=zsa&zoom_highlight=Baluchistan
and Human Rights Watch:
http://hrw.org/wr2k8/pdfs/pakistan.pdf