Blood Money

By the way, just in case you would like to see copies of the court documents from the 'Raymond Davis' case, attesting to the relatives of the deceased accepting diyat (blood money) and allowing the court to acquit the accused, here are some of them. I can't put all of them up (there are too many) but here's a representative sample of relatives' documents of one of the two men killed by 'Davis', Faizan Haider.

Here's the main prayer to the court setting out that the persons named have no objection to 'Raymond Davis' being acquitted by the court since they had accepted compensation and reached agreement to settle the matter.

Here's the individual affidavit of the mother of Faizan Haider, attesting that she has reached an agreement with her son's killer of her "free will, without any fear or pressure, without any enticement, and in her full senses." She further testifies that she has not been subjected to any injustice and has received a sum of Rs. 33,333,333/- from the accused and has no objection at present (nor will she in the future) to the accused being set free.

Here's a similar one from Faizan Haider's wife, acknowledging receipt of Rs. 25,000,000/-.

The rest are pretty much the same. The operative part in each is the share of the blood money received, divided according to shariah rules. The following is the detail of the diyat received by Faizan Haider's family:

Faizan Haider's Mother: Rs. 33,333,333/-
Faizan Haider's Wife: Rs.25,000,000/-
Faizan Haider's Brother No.1: Rs. 7,575,758/-
Faizan Haider's Brother No.2: Rs. 7,575,758/-
Faizan Haider's Brother No.3: Rs. 7,575,758/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No.1: Rs. 3,787,879/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No.2: Rs. 3,787,879/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No.3: Rs. 3,787,879/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No. 4: Rs. 3,787,879/-
Faizan Haider's Sister No. 5: Rs. 3,787,879/-

Total Diyat paid to Faizan Haider's relatives: Rs.100,000,002/- which translates into US$1,166,744/- at the current rate of exchange.

The relatives of the second man killed, Mohammad Faheem, received similar compensation.

Of course, there has long been an argument that the provision of paying diyat or blood money, while sanctified under Islamic law, leads to abuse of justice in an unequal society, since it more often than not allows the rich and influential to literally get away with murder. Nevertheless, this is very much a part of Pakistani law and in fact apparently used in a majority of murder cases according to lawyers. Those protesting against 'Davis' buying his way to freedom might want to question the Qissas and Diyat Laws in a more structural manner.

Please do note that I am not making any judgement about whether these affidavits were actually obtained without any pressure on the relatives. That is something for the court to decide and seemingly it seems to have decided to accept their authenticity. The case of the third man killed (by being run over) during that incident, Ibadur Rehman, has yet to be resolved.


Tailpiece: The editor of The News Islamabad, Mohammad Mallick claimed in a programme on Geo, that what this case has proved is that accused was tried by our courts and that local law takes precedence over the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Immunity. That is pure hogwash of course. It does nothing of the sort. For one, the trial never proceeded beyond indictment because of the 'out of court' settlement and so the accused was neither tried nor convicted. Secondly, the issue of diplomatic immunity never entered into the equation in this case since the Pakistan Foreign Office had stated (somewhat ambiguously) that in its opinion 'Raymond Davis' did not have documentation to support his plea for diplomatic immunity. So the issue of local laws taking precedence over the Vienna Conventions does not arise at all. For an editor of a major paper, Mr Mallick sure plays fast and loose with facts.

Reko Diqheads (Updated)

Remember this story in The News on November 3 by its Group Editor, Shaheen Sehbai? The front page 'expose' of an allegedly massive corruption scandal around the Reko Diq copper and gold mining project in Balochistan set tongues wagging all over Pakistan and among Pakistani expatriates abroad. The scale of the scandal was said to dwarf all previous scandals. The headline screamed:

"$260 billion gold mines going for a song, behind closed doors"

 Front page of The News on November 3, 2010

Now, in case you didn't follow the story or do not remember the exact words Mr. Sehbai used in his typically convoluted but bombastic style, let me briefly remind you what the investigative story said. Mr Sehbai begins by building conspiratorial suspense, clearly implying that President Zardari and his partymen are on the take to sell national wealth down the river to line their own pockets:

"Quietly, and below the media radar, some 20 top corporate bosses and lobbyists of two of the world’s largest gold mining groups have been meeting President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani, Governor State Bank and others in Islamabad throughout last week, pressing them to quickly hand over one of the world’s biggest gold and copper treasures found in Balochistan at Reko Diq, worth over $260 billion, to their companies, and for peanuts. Before these highly enticing visits of the mining tycoons to clinch the deals, which followed intense behind-the-scene negotiations and bargaining through middle men, some highly bizarre developments have been taking place, leaving experts and the rest of the mining world stunned, amazed and confused."

He expands on this tone:

"There is a plethora of documents, which prove that almost everybody involved is trying to deceive everybody else, the real picture is never presented, misleading statements and even contradictory claims have been made in the media, the issue has been kept confused as the real mega deal is maturing fast behind closed doors."

Citing the New York Times story that posited that Afghanistan was sitting on reserves of lithium worth up to a trillion US dollars (a story, it should be pointed out, that has itself been seriously questioned as a Pentagon attempt to sway public opinion in the US), Mr. Sehbai adds:

"Pakistan, it is estimated in mining circles, has more deposits than Afghanistan, so the enormity of the riches and the cost of the backdoor deals can easily be guessed. “It would be the mother of all the deals and grandfather of all the corruption cases in Pakistan, put together,” according to one expert. Reading the piles of documents, statements, interviews and legal papers available with The News, the picture that emerges is one of a grand deception, loot and plunder that never happened before on such a scale and the facts, untruths, half-truths, attempts to sabotage, frauds and backdoor bribes, are all documented. It all started in the Musharraf era but once the massive scale of the stakes involved became apparent to the PPP government, the Raisani/Zardari camp quickly jumped into the fray to renegotiate the deal, behind closed doors."

So far so good. I was hooked. Imagine my surprise then, when in an 'appearance' on tonight's Kehnay Mein Kya Harj Hai programme on Geo, Sehbai seemed to backtrack from the thrust of his story. You can see his opening salvo in the first few minutes of the following clip:


Part 1:




Basically, Sehbai says this is an old story, that he didn't really break the story and that all he did was raise questions about the murkiness of the deals being made so that someone could investigate it properly. Say what? I thought he had already worked it all out for us! In fact, I was so shocked at the weak defence of his sensational story (the host, Mohammad Mallick, then helps him out by saying that Sehbai's actually not accusing anyone directly of anything, he just wants things that are shrouded in mystery to be made clear) that I actually sat up and began to watch the programme with interest.

Sehbai really had me intrigued when he subsequently added that he had over 1,000 documents lying with him but that it is impossible to make sense of them by reading them in two to four days (so that's how long Sehbai worked on his investigative piece!), claiming that his story was actually a plea for someone to "go deeply into this and find out what is going on." I was intrigued, you see, because I kind of remembered Sehbai referring to a "deep study" of the documents in his possession, after which he had made the following declaration (as quoted above):

"Reading the piles of documents, statements, interviews and legal papers available with The News, the picture that emerges is one of a grand deception, loot and plunder that never happened before on such a scale and the facts, untruths, half-truths, attempts to sabotage, frauds and backdoor bribes, are all documented."

I am only reiterating that quote to drive home the point that Mr Sehbai has just shown himself to be either a coward or one of the most intellectually dishonest reporters to grace journalism in Pakistan. I also decided to go back and re-read his story and lo and behold certain other things began to stand out for me. For one, his source seems to be a representative of an American mining company with ties to the US establishment (keep in mind that the mining company being attacked in his piece is a Canadian-Chilean joint venture):

"“Because there is no effective investigating agency like NAB operating in the country, it is just the right case for the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice of Pakistan to pick up the issue, put a hold on whatever is going on before any binding contracts and deals are signed, which may cause losses of billions of dollars, yes billions of dollars to Pakistan,” according to a corporate executive involved in the mining industry, based in New York. His company chairman is a reputed former three-term Congressman."

Vested interests, anyone?

Look, I am not so naiive as to think that a multi-billion dollar business deal such as this could take place in contemporary Pakistan without a huge amount of kickbacks and commissions (there is enough evidence that indicates every major deal involves corruption at various levels). But surely, one must also consider the motivations of corporations (and governments) that make such allegations about business rivals only so that they may perhaps themselves get a piece of the pie.

But even more interesting is that the entire basis of Sehbai's report is called into question by the representative of the company targeted, Tethyan Copper Company (TCC), on the Geo programme, which also brings in Balochistan politicians Lt. General (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch (former Governor Balochistan and MNA of the PMLN) and Senator Dr Abdul Malik, President of the National Party for comments. Even the US$260 Billion figure seems, from the programme, to have been a product of Sehbai's flawed understanding of mining concepts. Samia Ali Shah, the Manager Corporate Communications for TTC more or less reduces the entire distinguished panel and the host, Mallick, to grasping at rhetoric and anecdotal hearsay. For those of you interested, I would strongly urge you to watch the whole programme, the remainder of which (following on from above) is provided below. It really is an eye-opener for all the wrong reasons:


Part 2:




Part 3:




Part 4:




I should probably reiterate that I am in no way arguing that everything about the Reko Diq deal is above board, that TCC is a model company or that there are no issues with the fairness of what Balochistan and Pakistan stand to actually gain from the exploitation of its mineral wealth. (I have heard enough rumours in Balochistan and elsewhere not to make any such judgement, especially without all the information.) And of course the media manager of a multinational is going to do what she is paid to do, i.e. defend her company. But irrespective of the undoubtedly exploitative nature of trans-national companies, what this programme clearly shows is the absolute and cringe-worthy understanding of economic issues across the board among most journalists and politicians. I have yet to understand why some journalists insist on writing on issues they don't even understand themselves.

You want to take on the big bad wolf of international extractive capitalism? At least get not only your facts but also your concepts right. To try and take them on with such half-baked knowledge is suicide.



: : : UPDATE : : :

Further intellectual dishonesty. Today's The News (November 10) carries a story on the back page, ascribed to the Monitoring Desk,  with the heading "Reko Diq Company accepts probe by independent commission." The story tries to spin the embarrassing blowing up of Shaheen Sehbai's claims in his face and the participants' and host's inability to ever corner the company on any facts, by saying:

"The Tethyan Copper Company Pakistan (Private) Limited, a joint venture between two major Canadian and Chilean mining companies, working on the multi-billion dollar controversial gold and copper mines project at Reko Diq in Balochistan agreed on Tuesday to set up an independent commission of experts to examine the numerous confusing aspects of the huge mining deal to the satisfaction of both the public and official stakeholders including the Balochistan government.

The spokesperson of the Tethyan Copper Company (TCC), Samia Shah conceded in the TV show “Kehnay Mein Kia Harj Hai?”, hosted by Mohammed Malick on Tuesday night, that her company will welcome such an independent commission. Other participants of the programme while welcoming this development however insisted that such an expert commission must be chosen and paid for by the government of Balochistan to exclude any possibility of the company influencing the commission’s findings."

As you may verify from the recording of the programme posted above earlier, rather than "conceding" anything, Ms. Shah had, in effect, dared (in a polite way) the participants to come up with facts and figures to contradict her/ TCC's claims through any independent commission. In addition, the last line the para quoted above is, simply, pure and utter fabrication. In fact, Mohammad Mallick had tried his best to get Ms. Shah to agree to TCC paying for the expert commission, more than once saying that the company had enough "dollars" to fund it and that he was trying to save the government money. It was Ms. Shah rather than "other participants" who pointed out that TCC paying for an expert commission might compromise the perception of its independence and refused to do commit to it.

When will The News' / Jang Group editors learn to take contradictions with some grace?

The Continuously Intriguing Media

It's getting so that even reporting on people changing jobs in the media has become risky business. As in, risky for one's credibility. Even though we do rely on very good sources before putting the information out here.

The latest U-turn (and believe us, it is a U-turn) is morning show star Dr Shahista Wahidi's announcement today on ARY that the news of her departure from the channel is simply rumour and not based on fact. Yes, Dr Wahidi, tell that to Geo which had bade Nadia Khan farewell and was having your new show's set designed. Obviously, this can only mean that ARY has upped the ante even further than the 22 lakhs a month Geo had offered Wahidi to lure her. Some people have all the luck, particularly at channels where many complain of not being paid their far more meagre salaries on time.

It was precisely because of this pendulum style of job negotiations that we had held off on reporting about The News senior investigative journalist Rauf Klasra's potential move from the Jang Group to the Express Media Group, which he himself had threatened many times earlier and which we had actually known about for some time. But now that the daily Express itself has confirmed it, we can add to it the reasons for it beyond the lure of a better pay packet.

In fact, Klasra had been rather unhappy at the Jang Group for quite some time. The official reason that Klasra is apparently now giving is his unhappiness with the, in his opinion, 'agenda-driven anti-government line of the Jang Group.' (It must be remembered that Klasra is known to be quite friendly with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who is from his hometown, Multan, and who it is believed is sometimes himself the source for some of Klasra's stories.) The upset with the excesses of the Jang Group may well be true, but it is also true that Klasra has been at daggers drawn with some of his colleagues at the Islamabad bureau of The News, particularly with the Editor Investigations Ansar Abbasi and his junior Ahmad Noorani, whom he accuses of constantly maligning and undermining him.

The rivalry between the three truly came out into the open last year when the website pkpolitics.com ran a story about Klasra's alleged corruption in receiving favours from the government in the allocation of plots and government housing for his (government employee) wife and relatives, claims Klasra strenuously denied. Klasra believed the story was instigated by the Nawaz Sharif camp to discredit him in retaliation for stories he had done about the Sharifs' alleged corruption and maladministration and claimed in a Jang column in September 2009 to have served a legal notice for 100 million pounds on the website (we have no idea what became of it). But more than that he also saw the direct connivance of Abbasi and Noorani in what he termed a 'smear campaign' against him. (Noorani, who most believe says things and writes stories at Abbasi's behest, even weighed in publicly against Klasra.) Things became so bitter at the Islamabad bureau that Mir Shakilur Rahman did one of his trademark organizational fudges to calm things down: he removed Klasra from under Abbasi and gave him a made-up title of Editor Reporting, reporting directly to the Editor. (Incidentally, the current Editor of The News Rawalpindi, Mohammad Mallick, supported Klasra in his fight against pkpolitics, which makes eminent sense since pkpolitics had also run a story earlier about Mallick's alleged corruption.)

But things continued to simmer and came to a head last month when Klasra ran two stories on September 28 and September 30. The first of these claimed that "backdoor channels played a key role" in defusing a crisis between the government and the judiciary. Bizarrely, the newspaper carried another story side-by-side with this, from "our correspondent" (code for Abbasi / Noorani) quoting Supreme Court sources debunking Klasra's story. (The Jang Group must have the only newspapers in the world that carry two diametrically opposite 'investigative' stories on the same day.) In fact, the Supreme Court exerted so much pressure for a retraction that The News published an "unconditional and sincere apology" on September 30. However, since Klasra was adamant about his story (insider sources say he told management he was willing to go to jail for it if need be) the apology was published from the editor, printer and publisher. No journalist appreciates a management that refuses to stand by its reporter and apparently Klasra was incensed that the apology was published despite his standing by his story. In fact, he blamed Abbasi for goading the management into publishing the apology and even hit out publicly at Abbasi on a Dunya TV programme later.

The second story Klasra published on September 30, claimed that President Zardari had admitted in an internal Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) meeting that he had been "misled" into not defending in court the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) by some unnamed "players of the game." Klasra further cited "one insider source" to claim that Zardari may have been referring to a well-respected but unnamed former judge from Karachi. Once again, two days later Ahmad Noorani published a story claiming that Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim denied the "president's defamatory allegations" and mocking Klasra for defaming him. This was another bizarre rebuttal since Klasra had never actually named anyone in his story. It is also obvious from the story that Ebrahim had been goaded into offering a rebuttal, as if he was the only respected retired judge in Karachi.

These two instances of direct undermining by colleagues were apparently the straw that broke the camel's back, leading Klasra to finally say enough is enough. For whatever it's worth, Klasra has often broken some interesting stories at The News / Jang and his departure will certainly leave the Jang Group poorer in the investigative department. The Jang Group will also miss his contacts within the government since Abbasi and Noorani have already been accused by the PPP of running one-sided stories. Klasra, whose recently published book Ek Siyaasat, Kayee Kahaniyaan [One Politics, Many Stories] has already become a best-seller, may be on a high at the moment, but it remains to be seen how well he adjusts to a new organizational culture at the Express Media Group.

Meanwhile, Aaj TV continues its blood-letting of staff after the departure of Syed Talat Hussain for Dawn and DawnNews. More staff have been fired from the Islamabad bureau, leading others to wonder just exactly what Aaj's management has in mind for the channel.