LONDON – United Kingdom has suspended a convicted prisoner exchangeagreementlinkwithPakistan, signed in November 2018, due to leniency in the law andpunishment to drug smuggler criminals in Pakistan, Dawnlink has reported.
Shahzad Akbar, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister, however, told OCCRPthat “the agreement has not been suspended.” He did not offer furtherdetails.
The agreement was also about strengthening the important law of mutuallegal assistance, extradition requests and steps to combat moneylaundering, with Britain to obtain foreign jurisdictions of financialcrimes involving Pakistani citizens.
Shozab Abbas, head of the Overseas Pakistani Division of the ForeignMinistry, told legislators that “Britain is not willing to continueexchange of prisoners’ agreement as the drug traffickers, serving theirsentences in British jails, should not be let pardoned in Pakistan afterexchange.”
He stressed that the equal punishment should be applied against them inPakistan.
A senior Islamabad-based international law expert, Osama J. Malik, toldOCCRP that Britain has suspended the prisoner swap agreement over concernsthat those convicted of drug related offenses had their sentencessubstantially reduced.
“Under the agreement the sentence cannot be changed without the consent ofthe transferring state,” Malik said.
The UK has previously suspended another agreement, signed in 2008link,for the same reasons.
Then, in 2015, the then Pakistani interior minister, Nisar Ali Khan, hadstopped all prisoner exchange agreementslinkaftermany Pakistanis convicted abroad were released upon their repatriation dueto collusion among authorities.