UK refuses to help Pakistani govt execute Nawaz Sharif's arrest warrants

[Saiyan0321]

UK refuses to help Pakistani govt execute Nawaz Sharif's arrest warrants

Former prime minister and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif addressing a PML-N working committee meeting via video link from London, on October 1, 2020. — YouTube
LONDON: The Pakistan High Commission has been unable to get the non-bailable arrest warrants for Nawaz Sharif executed at the Avenfield House nearly a month after the warrants were received here – and the British government has informed Pakistani officials they will not get involved in the matter.
Sources within the Pakistan High Commission have informed The News that five attempts were made so far to get the arrest warrants signed and delivered at the Avenfield flats, but there has been no success as neither Nawaz Sharif nor any member of the Sharif family has signed the official papers.
Sources in the high commission said that its staff members have made visits to the property’s reception but were unable to meet any member of the family.
The latest visit was made on Thursday afternoon by two officials who stayed on Dunraven Street for about ten minutes and left without even approaching the reception.
The former prime minister was speaking to his party’s Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting just about five minutes away, from Hasan Nawaz’s office.
Pakistani diplomats also asked the British government through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to help execute the arrest warrants but the British government plainly refused, informing Pakistan officials that the UK govt will not interfere in the country's internal political matters.
The sources said that the UK has informed the Pakistani officials that getting the arrest warrants executed was not its job and it didn’t have the mandate to enforce warrants.
The options for Pakistan High Commission are limited. It can do nothing beyond using the services of Royal Mail and courier services for the “signed and acknowledged” service or get it’s own staff to get the papers signed.
The recipient of the post, in this case, is Nawaz Sharif and it’s entirely up to him to either voluntarily accept or sign the correspondence or not. His staff and family members can also sign and acknowledge the correspondence on his behalf, but that can be done only in a volunteer capacity and they cannot be forced to sign and acknowledge.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) was informed last week that the former prime minister has “refused” to receive non-bailable arrest warrants at his residence in the United Kingdom.

UK refuses to help Pakistani govt execute Nawaz Sharif's arrest warrants

UK authorities tell Pakistan High Commission officials they will not get involved in Nawaz Sharif's matter

www.geo.tv

 

[Nilgiri]

Like there is an extradition process right?....

"Warrant" lol...what's with the amateur-hour moves by Pak govt.

 

[Saithan]

I’d have set the pakistani intelligence to gather intel and dirt on Nawaz faction and started public accusations. Bring them down before areesting them.

Have pakistani intelligence ready and keeping track of Nawaz and take him out when he gets careless.

 

[Kaptaan]

I’d have set the pakistani intelligence to gather intel and dirt on Nawaz faction and started public accusations.

Have pakistani intelligence ready and keeping track of Nawaz and take him out when he gets careless.

Few thoughts on this -

you can't blame the British government for this. They know this is not simple legal case but involves political consideration which could have strategic effect on British foreign relations relationship with the Pakistani state. For example it is very concievable [as has happened] and NS could be back in power few years down the road. That would put the HM government in a right pickle. If the British government concluded that NS was a spent force then you would see them take action. Bottom line: If the Pak state was too weak and indecisive in sorting out NS while he was in Pakistan and allowed him to leave the country you can't expect UK government to do it's dirty work.

Bring them down before areesting them.

The problem here is and such situations expose the fact that the Pakistani deep state [contrary to what people like @VCheng keep on harping on about] is too weak]. Not externally weak as when facing a foreign enemy. But internally weak when faced with domestic problems. Imaging a Mike Tyson trying to box you while he is standing on two beach balls. He may be world class boxer but all his effort would be sapped in making sure he keeps standing leave alone giving KO's to his enemies.

Pakistan needs a 'clean out' like Gen Evren or Gen Pinochet did in Turkey and Chile. Both entailed 100,000s be arrested, scores killed etc. Such a thing has never happened in Pakistan even under the most brutal military dictator like Gen Zia.

 

[Saithan]

Few thoughts on this -

you can't blame the British government for this. They know this is not simple legal case but involves political consideration which could have strategic effect on British foreign relations relationship with the Pakistani state. For example it is very concievable [as has happened] and NS could be back in power few years down the road. That would put the HM government in a right pickle. If the British government concluded that NS was a spent force then you would see them take action. Bottom line: If the Pak state was too weak and indecisive in sorting out NS while he was in Pakistan and allowed him to leave the country you can't expect UK government to do it's dirty work.

The problem here is and such situations expose the fact that the Pakistani deep state [contrary to what people like @VCheng keep on harping on about] is too weak]. Not externally weak as when facing a foreign enemy. But internally weak when faced with domestic problems. Imaging a Mike Tyson trying to box you while he is standing on two beach balls. He may be world class boxer but all his effort would be sapped in making sure he keeps standing leave alone giving KO's to his enemies.

Pakistan needs a 'clean out' like Gen Evren or Gen Pinochet did in Turkey and Chile. Both entailed 100,000s be arrested, scores killed etc. Such a thing has never happened in Pakistan even under the most brutal military dictator like Gen Zia.

I understand, but an underground movement with military background. Nationalistic could become operational and do some clean up.

I mean we had JÖH that paid back in kind on terrorists and their supporters. Not sanctioned by TSK, they just established themselves. As I know it.

 

[Saiyan0321]

I understand, but an underground movement with military background. Nationalistic could become operational and do some clean up.

More terrorists? thats just what this country needs. Army creating militant outfits of military experienced groups which later on started to take control of large areas and launching attacks on anybody that didnt agree with them. These groups never stay in control and they never stay nationalistic and only morph into monsters that take 80k lives.

Sorry no such groups and the army is also not keen in training them as well.

 

[Saiyan0321]

Like there is an extradition process right?....

"Warrant" lol...what's with the amateur-hour moves by Pak govt.

Warrant is court game. Extradition is state event thus the state itself is not in the mood to bring him back which makes sense from a political point of view since the Senate is composed of Opposition alliance and the senate elections will be happening in 6-7 months after which the government should have a majority seats in the senate as well. Why stir the nest right now when the opposition can make things difficult when the same nest could be stirred with the senate in hand and by then the GB elections will be done as well so PTI wont have to worry much.
Lastly right now the Opposition movement is divided with Fazlu wanting extreme steps and PPP wanting only speeches along with half of N league wanting nothing serious and the other half wanting protests. The divides are getting clearer and any extradition effort from the state would unite them even more.

I think imran is trying to make sure that the moment is right and even then he may not try it since as we know that UK could refuse. Nawaz is still a major politician and his party can very easily tip the scales in next election. The government stands on a beach ball and politically speaking the government of UK may think to make the same stand as stated by @Kaptaan

 

[Kaptaan]

More terrorists? thats just what this country needs. Army creating militant outfits of military experienced groups which later on started to take control of large areas and launching attacks on anybody that didnt agree with them. These groups never stay in control and they never stay nationalistic and only morph into monsters that take 80k lives.

Sorry no such groups and the army is also not keen in training them as well.

I depends. Some countries have used such methods very efectively. The real rub is in what you cultivate. If it is Islamists then expect them to morph into a global Islamist, trans-national ventures down the road. This is what Pakistan did.

If on other hand o cultivate intensely nationalist groups they will only morph into uber-nationalists. Something that is needed in countries still raw and still being "cooked" like Pakistan.

 

[Saiyan0321]

I depends. Some countries have used such methods very efectively. The real rub is in what you cultivate. If it is Islamists then expect them to morph into a global Islamist, trans-national ventures down the road. This is what Pakistan did.

If on other hand o cultivate intensely nationalist groups they will only morph into uber-nationalists. Something that is needed in countries still raw and still being "cooked" like Pakistan.

We cant cultivate anything that wont become Islamic. Islam is in the breath of this country but that is not the worst part. The worst part is that hunger for power is what is in the blood of this land and the moment they effectively do such and gain influence, network and power, they will morph into something that we will not be able to control and may even bring in a situation where this raised militia will try to bring a violent revolution leading to Pakistan becoming a warzone and let me highlight this that they will definitely most definitely use Islam for their personal venture.


Funnily enough we did do that in Karachi. Rao Anwar was exactly that. Him and his team pioneered the 90s operations and used some of the worst forms of execution to weed out MQM and after that paid with their lives but the network he raised was instrumental in hunting them down all through the 2000s till the 2014-15 operation where he again played an important role. execution style, torture and some of the worst police play the region had ever seen was employed against MQM and the result was that MQM may have looked invincible in Karachi but it was always bleeding in Karachi and this always struggled to exert any influence outside the its region. That all sounds very heroic and indeed it is the effort of that group of Karachi police officers which were all hunted down by MQM one by one leaving anwar the last of them but the negative result was that he had power, influence and network and he used it for his own benefit and when MQM was beaten down in 2015, his power seemed limitless and we all know where that led.


In our region, the nationalism is not strong enough to keep them in line and the religion factor is too great and self interest is too much. I am sorry but i absolutely do not support such groups or any groups of such.

 

[VCheng]

The options for Pakistan High Commission are limited. It can do nothing beyond using the services of Royal Mail and courier services for the “signed and acknowledged” service or get it’s own staff to get the papers signed.
The recipient of the post, in this case, is Nawaz Sharif and it’s entirely up to him to either voluntarily accept or sign the correspondence or not. His staff and family members can also sign and acknowledge the correspondence on his behalf, but that can be done only in a volunteer capacity and they cannot be forced to sign and acknowledge.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) was informed last week that the former prime minister has “refused” to receive non-bailable arrest warrants at his residence in the United Kingdom.

Those who let him go in the first place are merely trying to throw up this ineffective smokescreen just to give the impression that they are doing something to get him back. That is all. The noora kushti continues.

 

[Kaptaan]

Those who let him go

Why did they let him go? Was this cat and mouse game? Where the cat let the mouse go just to prove how agile it is in grabbing it again?

 

[VCheng]

Why did they let him go? Was this cat and mouse game? Where the cat let the mouse go just to prove how agile it is in grabbing it again?

The WHY is a great question, and I suspect that the answer lies in the mechanisms used for installing, prematurely removing PMs, and then facilitating avoidance of any credible accountability similar to those used in the past. This is just another footnote to the previous chapter, as we head towards the concluding the current chapter in a few years. Yawn.

 

[Kaptaan]

The WHY is a great question, and I suspect that the answer lies in the mechanisms used for installing, prematurely removing PMs, and then facilitating avoidance of any credible accountability similar to those used in the past.

You appear to be strongly convinced that the establishment [read military] orchestrates the political landscape of Pakistan but then your not able to provide a cogent reason as to the "why". Seems rather silly to me. Surely without a motive your argumant falls flat.

How about another reason. There is NO single player in Pakistan. Instead we have a divided, conflicted society with not much in common other than a geography. The state has failed to build a coherant narrative that unites all. In this crazy conflicterd polity one of the players is the military. This raises the question if the military is one of the players how dominant is it compared to the rest. I would say that while it is the largest player but if sufficient number of other players gang up against it they can bring it down. Which is why every military dictator will gather a pool of smaller players to beef up his military rule.

This is quite unlike other coutries like Turkey where the military had until recently a shadow that could engulf all other players in the state. This mean't that Turkish military governments could do things that our dictators can only dream of. For example. The 1980 coup led by Gen Evren did the following -


The coup rounded up members of both the left and right for trial with military tribunals. Within a very short time, there were 250,000[6] to 650,000 people detained. Among the detainees, 230,000 were tried, 14,000 were stripped of citizenship, and 50 were executed.[18] In addition, hundreds of thousands of people were tortured, and thousands disappeared. A total of 1,683,000 people were blacklisted.[19] Apart from the militants killed during shootings, at least four prisoners were legally executed immediately after the coup; the first ones since 1972, while in February 1982 there were 108 prisoners condemned to capital punishment.[10] Among the prosecuted were Ecevit, Demirel, Türkeş, and Erbakan, who were incarcerated and temporarily suspended from politics.

One notable victim of the hangings was a 17-year-old Erdal Eren, who said he looked forward to it in order to avoid thinking of the torture he had witnessed.[20]

These figures are shocking. Understand this that Turkey is three times smaller in population yet the Turkish military visited terror on millions. No coup in Pakistan could ever dream of doing this. You saw how Musharaf just melted away once things got hot. Pakistan political landscape is not acceptable to authoritarian governments which is bad and good. It means Pakisatan will never get strong man to sort the mess out quicxkly. Instead the country will just keep bouncing here and there slowly evolving unless something tectonic happens.



The pushing and shoving between all these players mediated by the military is the politics you see in Pakistan. If there was no strong military player the state would have imploded first into it's constituting provinces and then within the provinces there would have been open civil warfare. That conflicted, chaotic order you see would explode into a conflict that would match or outdo what you see in Iraq or Syria. It would driven along ethnic, sectarian lines.

Expect Sindh and Balochistan to literally turn into Libya style choatic warzones. Balochistan would see the Pakhtun, Baloch split with Shia Hazara giving a sectarian angle to the fighting. Karachi would turn into Beirut times ten of the 1980s and interior Sindh would see militia fighting it out.

 

[Saithan]

You appear to be strongly convinced that the establishment [read military] orchestrates the political landscape of Pakistan but then your not able to provide a cogent reason as to the "why". Seems rather silly to me. Surely without a motive your argumant falls flat.

How about another reason. There is NO single player in Pakistan. Instead we have a divided, conflicted society with not much in common other than a geography. The state has failed to build a coherant narrative that unites all. In this crazy conflicterd polity one of the players is the military. This raises the question if the military is one of the players how dominant is it compared to the rest. I would say that while it is the largest player but if sufficient number of other players gang up against it they can bring it down. Which is why every military dictator will gather a pool of smaller players to beef up his military rule.

This is quite unlike other coutries like Turkey where the military had until recently a shadow that could engulf all other players in the state. This mean't that Turkish military governments could do things that our dictators can only dream of. For example. The 1980 coup led by Gen Evren did the following -


The coup rounded up members of both the left and right for trial with military tribunals. Within a very short time, there were 250,000[6] to 650,000 people detained. Among the detainees, 230,000 were tried, 14,000 were stripped of citizenship, and 50 were executed.[18] In addition, hundreds of thousands of people were tortured, and thousands disappeared. A total of 1,683,000 people were blacklisted.[19] Apart from the militants killed during shootings, at least four prisoners were legally executed immediately after the coup; the first ones since 1972, while in February 1982 there were 108 prisoners condemned to capital punishment.[10] Among the prosecuted were Ecevit, Demirel, Türkeş, and Erbakan, who were incarcerated and temporarily suspended from politics.

One notable victim of the hangings was a 17-year-old Erdal Eren, who said he looked forward to it in order to avoid thinking of the torture he had witnessed.[20]

These figures are shocking. Understand this that Turkey is three times smaller in population yet the Turkish military visited terror on millions. No coup in Pakistan could ever dream of doing this. You saw how Musharaf just melted away once things got hot. Pakistan political landscape is not acceptable to authoritarian governments which is bad and good. It means Pakisatan will never get strong man to sort the mess out quicxkly. Instead the country will just keep bouncing here and there slowly evolving unless something tectonic happens.



The pushing and shoving between all these players mediated by the military is the politics you see in Pakistan. If there was no strong military player the state would have imploded first into it's constituting provinces and then within the provinces there would have been open civil warfare. That conflicted, chaotic order you see would explode into a conflict that would match or outdo what you see in Iraq or Syria. It would driven along ethnic, sectarian lines.

Expect Sindh and Balochistan to literally turn into Libya style choatic warzones. Balochistan would see the Pakhtun, Baloch split with Shia Hazara giving a sectarian angle to the fighting. Karachi would turn into Beirut times ten of the 1980s and interior Sindh would see militia fighting it out.

I think Pakistan’s constitution and how it was founded has a lot to do with how the military sees its role.

If it had been TSK. Guardianship of the democracy would have been established with several intelligence unit being created, one for each region. Political cleansing process.

But I don’t believe that Musharaf empowered the military after the coup d’etat. But I could be wrong as my interest lay elsewhere back then.

 

[VCheng]

You appear to be strongly convinced that the establishment [read military] orchestrates the political landscape of Pakistan but then your not able to provide a cogent reason as to the "why". Seems rather silly to me. Surely without a motive your argumant falls flat.

The motive? Absolute control over power. And the economic and other benefits that flow from it. Quite simple, and logical.