false cases on MQM and their acquittal
US state department report on Pakistan
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
On June 11,
16-year-old Mohammad Saleem was convicted by an antiterrorist court of killing three police officers; however, Saleem was tried and acquitted of the same charges by a court in January on the grounds of insufficient evidence and lack of a motive.
On August 21, two MQM members, Mohammed Saleem and Ahmed Saeed, were convicted in an antiterrorist court of the 1997
killings of two foreign employees of Union Texas Petroleum and their driver. The two were
sentenced to death, as well as to and approximately $40,000 (PRs 2 million) in fines. Many questioned the
fairness of the trial, since the convictions were based largely on the confessions of the accused;
the confessions later were retracted on the grounds that they were
obtained by the police through the use of torture.
In February 2000, two police inspectors c
harged with killing an MQM activist in custody in 1998 were denied bail after the Sindh High Court determined that they f
alsified precinct records and appeared to have committed the crime (see Section 1.a.). During the year, the two police inspectors were released on bail.