| Hafiz Abdul Basit | |
| Birth Place: | Pakistan |
| Known For: | Three-year detention on suspicion of involvement in a plot to assassinate Pervez Musharraf |
Hafiz Abdul Basit is a citizen of Pakistan who is believed to have been detained on suspicion of involvement to assassinate Pakistan's leader President Pervez Musharraf.[1] [2]
A devout Muslim,[3] Basit disappeared from his home on January 4, 2004, and was believed to have been taken into covert extrajudicial detention in a secret Pakistani interrogation center for the next three and a half years.[4] [5] (see also: Missing persons (Pakistan))
Tariq Pervez, the director-general of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency, was threatened with jail, unless he produced Basit.[1] [5] Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad told him:
Pervez claims he was soon transferred to the custody of Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Interservices Intelligence Directorate.[5]
Pervez was allowed two brief, temporary, releases from the Court, to give him an opportunity to arrange for Hafiz Abdul Basit to be released from his extrajudicial detention—without success.[1] Pakistan's Attorney General Malik Qayyum intervened, and sought a further two-day adjournment, taking responsibility for the release of Hafiz Abdul Basit.[6] Hafiz Abdul Basit had still not been produced, before the Court, on August 22, 2007, when the two-day adjournment expired.[7] [8] [9] The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that Qayyum told the Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court ordered the 25-year-old Basit be released to his maternal uncle Hafiz Mohammad Nasir.[3] [7]
He was finally released August 22, 2007.[10]
Iftikhar's examination of the circumstances of Hafiz Abdul Basit's detention would trigger a wider inquiry into the practice of Pakistan's Intelligence and Justice organs holding captives in extrajudicial detention.Iftikhar wrote[1]
The Pakistani Supreme Court is going through a list of 287 disappeared men, one at a time.[5]
The Supreme Court also ordered the release of other men from the list of disappeared, Imran Munir, Alim Nasir, Jan Muhammad, Munir Mengal and Salim Baloch.[1]