Get Pakistan to show missing journalist is alive and safe, Anwar told

 

Putrajaya deported Syed Fawad Ali Shah in August at the behest of the Pakistani government.

PETALING JAYA: Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim must demand his Pakistani counterpart prove that Syed Fawad Ali Shah is alive and safe, the lawyer to the family of the missing journalist said.

This was after Putrajaya confirmed that he was deported last August at the behest of the Pakistani government. Fawad had been in exile in Malaysia for 11 years as he feared persecution in his home country for writing reports critical of Islamabad.

In a letter to Anwar, lawyer P Waytha Moorthy claimed the Pakistani government was not truthful in their request for Fawad to be deported, by claiming that he was a police officer with “disciplinary” issues.

Fawad’s wife, Syeda denied her husband had ever been a police officer after home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said earlier this week that it was one of the reasons given by Islamabad in requesting for him to be deported.

Waytha said in 2020, Pakistan had attempted to put Fawad on Interpol’s Red List, with the global agency rejecting the request as it had no legal basis.

“However, the Pakistani authorities seem to have hoodwinked the Malaysian government in August 2022 into believing that Fawad was wanted for disciplinary offences when he was a ‘police officer’,” he said in his letter.

“To date, the Pakistani government has not confirmed if Fawad was in its custody and what charges had been levelled against him.

“What is apparent is Fawad seems to have disappeared into thin air,” Waytha wrote.

He urged Anwar to ask Pakistan to ensure that Fawad is produced in court to face charges, and possibly return him to Malaysia so that he can be reunited with his family and resettled in a third country as a refugee under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Fawad, 41, holds a UNHCR card having sought asylum in Malaysia claiming alleged persecution in Pakistan over articles published in several English dailies there related to alleged government corruption. He has been missing since Aug 23 last year. - FMT