For the last 77 years, Pakistan’s military-security establishment has run the country either directly or indirectly. Its officers have rarely been held accountable and in 77 years there have only been 3 general officers who have faced court-martial proceedings.
The case against Faiz “is based on a petition filed by the incumbent chief executive officer of the Top City housing society, Kanwar Moeez Khan, before the Supreme Court in November. The petition said that on May 12, 2017, the Pakistan Rangers and ISI officials raided the offices of the housing project and the residence of Mr Moeez in connection with a purported terrorism case and took away gold and diamond ornaments, money and other valuables. Gen Faiz reportedly took the action against the petitioner on a complaint of Zahida Javed Aslam, a Pakistan-born British national, who claimed that Mr Moeez was her employee and had fraudulently transferred the project’s land in his name. Mr Moeez, on the other hand, contended in his petition that Gen Faiz’s brother Sardar Najaf mediated and tried to resolve the issue. After a Rawalpindi-based ATC acquitted him in the terrorism case, the petition claimed, Gen Hameed contacted him through his cousin — a brigadier in the army — to arrange a meeting. The petition claimed that during the meeting, Gen Hameed told Mr Moeez that he would return the items taken away during the raid, except for 400 tola gold and cash. The petition alleged that retired brigadiers Naeem Fakhar and Ghaffar of the ISI “forced” the petitioner to “pay 4 crores [rupees] in cash” and “sponsor a private TV network for a few months”.”
A news story in Dawn laid out details about the earlier two cases. “Retired Lt Gen Javed Iqbal Awan was convicted by the Field General Court Martial (FGCM) for sharing ‘classified information’ with foreign spies and awarded 14 years’ rigorous imprisonment, but a military court of appeal reduced his sentence and he was released from prison in December last year. Gen Iqbal was awarded the prison term on May 30, 2019 after being convicted of “espionage/leakage of sensitive information to foreign agencies prejudicial to the national security”, but eventually came out of jail after four years. Earlier, Maj Gen Zaheerul Islam Abbasi, Brig Mustansir Billah, two colonels and 38 other military officers were arrested on Sept 26, 1995, on charges of plotting to storm a corps commanders’ meeting, to be held on Sept 30 at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. They had also allegedly plotted to proclaim ‘Khilafat’ or Islamic rule, with Maj Gen Abbasi as ‘Amirul Momineen’ after assassinating then-prime minister Benazir Bhutto and then-army chief Gen Abdul Waheed Kakkar, senior cabinet ministers and senior military officers.”
Former DG ISI Lt Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed will be the third such officer as he was recently charged with misusing his position to extort money from a private housing society. However, most analysts will agree that the real reason why the former intelligence chief is facing the wrath of the state is because he is on the wrong side of the army top brass, especially army chief General Asim Munir.
