Afghan prosecution has sought enhanced punishment for a Pakistani TV reporter, who was awarded four years in prison in July on charges of travelling to the neighbouring country without documents, his lawyer says.
Faizullah Khan, a reporter for ARY News, was detained by Afghan security officials in the eastern Nangarhar province in April this year. Some reports had earlier suggested Faizullah was on assignment to interview Taliban leaders as part of his professional duties.
The Afghan spy agency, National Directorate of Security (NDS), had initially charged him of spying. However, the judge did not accept the NDS plea and convicted him for travelling to Afghanistan without documents, and for “positively projecting the Taliban.”
Later an intelligence court convicted Khan for illegal entry and “positive projection of the militants.”
Khan’s lawyer had challenged his conviction in a high court in eastern Nangarhar province.
The Afghan High Court had a brief hearing of the appeal on September 16, sources close the legal proceedings said. Faizullah Khan was also produced in the court.
An Afghan prosecutor read out a “charge-sheet” against Faizullah Khan and told the High Court that the intelligence court has convicted the Pakistani reporter only on one charge and that a verdict has yet to be given on other charges.
He also claimed that the “reporter was sent to Afghanistan by the government institutions from Karachi.”
Defence lawyer Hameedullah rejected the charges against his client Faizullah Khan. He said Khan is a professional journalist and he was unaware as to whom he will interview as those who he had interviewed in Peshawar had organized his interviews in the border areas.
“It was not Faizullah Khan’s choice to conduct interviews in the border areas but all were fixed by others,” the defence lawyer further argued.
He said the Pakistani reporter should be acquitted as he had challenged the militants for their violent approach and that their conduct is against the true spirit of Islam.
The Afghan court later adjourned the hearing without giving any date.
In Islamabad the Foreign Office spokesperson the Foreign Ministry is pursuing the case.
“The lawyer and our concerned officials are proceedings with care. We are very much on this case,” spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said at her weekly briefing.
“We have also requested our embassy (in Kabul) and the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs for further meetings to help this case proceeds smoothly,” she said.
She also said the Foreign Ministry has hired a lawyer to take up the appeal in the High Court. “There will be one hearing in which a decision to his appeal will be given.”
The Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad, the capital of the Nangarhar province in Afghanistan, has been involved in the legal help of the journalist.
International and Pakistani media groups had condemned the Afghan court’s verdict and had demanded his immediate release.
Reporters Without Borders had termed it an “utterly disproportionate sentence” and asked for it “to be quashed on appeal.”
“The organisation questions the court’s motives for imposing such a heavy sentence. Was it a message to foreign reporters entering Afghanistan without proper travel documents, or was it a warning to foreign reporters investigating subjects regarded as ‘sensitive’?,” the organization had stated in a statement.
==
