Javed Ibrahim Paracha: Al-Qaeda’s Lawyer in Pakistan

Javed Ibrahim Paracha: Al-Qaeda’s Lawyer in Pakistan

Javed Ibrahim Paracha, a former member of Pakistan’s National Assembly (the lower house of parliament), has a history of assisting al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Paracha first entered the public eye for his consistent efforts to free al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistani government custody, going so far as to be nicknamed ‘‘the al-Qaeda lawyer.” Whenever suspected terrorists are arrested, Paracha defends them in court, especially when the suspects are be deported to their countries of origin. Because of his political acumen and connection to Islamists, the Pakistani government has also sought Paracha’s help to act as mediator.

A lawyer by profession, Paracha belongs to the minority ethnic Hindko community, which resides in the overwhelmingly Pashtun district of Kohat in northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. He adheres to a Salafist brand of Islam, connecting him ideologically to al-Qaeda, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and foreign Islamist terrorists despite his ethnic minority status. Now in his seventies, Paracha started his political career with the center-right Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz faction)—the current ruling party in Pakistan—and became a Member of National Assembly from Kohat in the 1996 elections. He later left PML-N to join the Islamist Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (Fazal faction). Given Paracha’s clear tilt towards the Taliban and al-Qaeda, his switching allegiance to JUI was logical since JUI leader Fazal ur-Rehman has long been a vocal supporter of the Afghan Taliban.

Jihadist Legal Aid

After the fall of the Taliban regime as a result of U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, scores of fleeing al-Qaeda leaders sought refuge in Pakistan. More than 680 al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders and rank and file were then arrested in Pakistani cities and rural areas, and 140 of them were allegedly jailed in the Kohat district prison. [1] Paracha sensed that Pakistani authorities would hand those suspects into American custody, and he organized legal campaigns to seek release of these prisoners so that they would not be transferred to the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

While Islamist NGOs took the matter to streets, Islamist lawyers like Javed Ibrahim Paracha took to the Pakistani courts. Paracha filed a writ of petition challenging the arrest and detention of roughly 57 (mostly Arab) foreigners and another 145 Pakistanis arrested in the tribal areas of Pakistan. However, the Peshawar High Court dismissed Paracha’s writ on technical grounds as he was not a party in the cases. Pakistan’s Supreme Court also dismissed his petitions on the same grounds. Paracha described himself in the writ as “friend of the detainees,” and said that he was acting for the public good. [2] Despite Paracha’s efforts, most of the imprisoned were transferred from Pakistan to Guantanamo Bay.

Paracha has also said that he made efforts to ensure the safety and protection of Osama bin Laden and other high-value al-Qaeda leaders amid the U.S. invasion in December 2001. [3]

Paracha established an organization, the World Prisoners’ Relief Forum, whose purpose is providing legal aid to al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists while also voicing concern for those still “missing” in the custody of the security agencies. This clearly shows that he is in contact with high-level al-Qaeda leaders, who inform him about arrests, after which he files writs of habeas corpus in court. He also heads the International Rabita Jihad Council, an Islamist charity organization.

Paracha has also provided legal aid to al-Qaeda-affiliated Pakistani Islamists abroad. In March 2005, families of Saifullah Paracha (no relation), and Zain bin Afzal and Kashan Afzal (U.S. nationals of Pakistani origin), who were arrested by Pakistani and U.S. law enforcement agencies in Bangkok and Karachi, publicly appealed for their relatives to be released (Dawn, March 12, 2005). [4] Javed Paracha then provided support in the form of raising the issue in news conferences and apparently pleading on their behalf. In 2015, Paracha provided legal aid to Arfan Bhatti, a Norwegian of Pakistan descent involved in a shooting at a synagogue in Oslo in 2006. Bhatti fled to Pakistan, where he was arrested but later released with Paracha’s assistance (Aftenposten [Oslo], February 6).

Mediation

Since Pakistan’s government and military are aware of Paracha’s contacts inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban, they have tried to hire his services as a mediator on various occasions, as signs of his influence in Islamist circles within Pakistan. According to slain Pakistani investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, in 2005, Paracha was contacted by U.S. officials to contact the Afghan Taliban leadership for a truce. However, Paracha denied such reports and claimed to have met only U.S. businessmen, not government officials (Afghanistan News Center, November 23, 2005).

In July 2007, Paracha and Shah Abdul Aziz, another former member of the National Assembly with an Islamist background, were asked by the then government of General Pervez Musharraf to mediate with Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) militants to end the siege. However, terms could not be agreed upon, and this failure resulted in a Special Forces-led operation against those holding the Red Mosque in July 2007 (ARY News, January 4, 2014).

The current PML-N government, which came into power after winning the 2013 elections, initially decided to hold a dialogue with the TTP. Because of Paracha’s apparent TTP and al-Qaeda connections, his services were used. In September 2013, Paracha stated on the record that TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud demanded the release of 50 TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorists from Pakistani prisons in return for beginning peace talks. The TTP’s then spokesperson later denied such reports. According to another report, the TTP chief, before his death in a U.S. drone strike in November 2013, formed a committee comprising of Paracha, Tariq Asad, Qazi Anwar and Fida Mohammad Khan to fight on behalf of imprisoned Taliban in the Pakistani courts (The News International, September 20, 2013).

Conclusion

Paracha makes no efforts to conceal his connections with Islamist violent non-state actors in Pakistan. He roams freely, actively participates in local politics and gives interviews to local and international media outlets. On the one hand, this displays the weakness of the state, but on the other, his activities give investigators and counter-terrorism analysts access to information related to the overall Islamist terrorist network. The case of Paracha is a special one, as he defies state writ and continues to sympathize and side with Islamist terrorist groups proscribed in Pakistan and globally. The presence of personalities like Javed Ibrahim Paracha on the jihadist landscape of Pakistan confirms that the South Asian theater of the Global War on Terror is still unravelling.

Farhan Zahid writes on counter-terrorism, al-Qaeda, Pakistani al-Qaeda-linked groups, Islamist violent non-state actors in Pakistan, militant landscapes in Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban.

Notes

1. These figures come from The Rendition Project here https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/pdf/PDF%2043%20[CP-2006-12-(2)-REP%20Beyond%20the%20Law%20(prison%20list)].pdf.

2. The “Missing Persons” issue remains in public eye after the forced disappearances of scores of Islamist individuals suspected to have been involved in or played some role in terrorist activities in Pakistan. Many of those missing persons were abducted by security agencies, and their relatives filed writ petitions in court. In some cases, the Pakistani judges ordered the security chiefs to produce the missing persons in court, and they did manage to produce some, while a good number of dead bodies were found after the orders. For Paracha’s writ of petition, please see Rasheed A Rizvi, “Cases of Enforced Disappearances in Pakistan”, https://www.pakistaniscandals.com/post/1563/maaz-farooquis-mother-comments-after-missing-of-h.html

3. This can be seen in a MEMRI TV interview from 2010: https://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?217740-A-2010-interview-of-PMLN-s-Javed-Ibrahim-Paracha-about-Talban-amp-Alqaida.

4. Saifullah Paracha, a high-risk Guantanamo detainee and U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin, was arrested in Bangkok in 2003 in connection with his association with Osama Bin Laden and 9/11 mastermind Khaled Shaikh Mohammad (Dawn, June 22, 2011). According to the leaked Guantanamo Dockets by WikiLeaks, he was found involved in “al-Qaeda plots to acquire and smuggle, chemical or biological weapons, explosives, and radioactive material for terrorist attacks in the US and UK.” New York Times, https://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/1094-saifullah-paracha.