JEDDAH, 24 August — Pakistan police on Thursday registered a case of robbery against Shaheen Sehbai, the editor of Washington-based South Asia Tribune, a recently launched news portal. The prominent Pakistani journalist said yesterday that police have registered the criminal case against him after he wrote a series of articles in his Internet weekly journal accusing President Pervez Musharraf’s government of corruption.
Police in Rawalpindi district confirmed the case has been registered and said it was related to a robbery allegedly committed by Sehbai and his family members in a relative’s house 18 months ago. Sehbai stayed in Pakistan over a year after the alleged incident and left for the US in March this year.
Sehbai, 54, is settled in the United States after he quit Pakistan’s leading English language daily The News where he had worked as editor in chief. The journalist had said he resigned from the newspaper because of government pressure on his newspaper over the Daniel Pearl murder investigation reporting.
Police said the case had been registered on the orders of the Lahore High Court on a petition filed against Sehbai by a former relative. Khalid Hijazi, former husband of Sehbai’s sister-in-law, alleged in his complaint that the journalist and his family had committed armed robbery in his home and taken away valuables some 18 months ago.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who is living abroad in self-imposed exile, deplored the action against Sehbai, accusing the military regime of victimizing a senior journalist. "It is most deplorable that the tactics of forging cases against political opposition has been extended to the media as well," Benazir said in a statement.
Refuting the charges Sehbai said, "it is a totally fake and bogus allegation made by the military regime using a poor low-level employee of the army general headquarters, who once was my cousin’s husband."
Sehbai told Arab News the police were raiding his relatives’ homes in Pakistan and harassing women and children to put pressure on him not to expose their corrupt activities. "This report lodged by the police, obviously under pressure of the military authorities, is mala fide and a direct victimization because I have launched a newspaper which has exposed many scandals of the military government and its high ups. The police case against me has been lodged 18 months after the alleged incident which itself speaks about its merit," Sehabi said.
A shocked Sehbai further said, "I will invoke all legal and constitutional remedies to defend against this outrageous onslaught against me, my family and the press. I have already instructed my legal counsel, Babar Awan in Rawalpindi, to prepare a legal defense to fight this blatant harassment which exposes all claims of Gen. Pervez Musharraf about freedom of the press in Pakistan."
