[Although the Taliban gunmen
were believed to have fled to neighboring Afghanistan, the authorities
announced the arrest of 10 men and put them on trial in April at a military-run
internment center in Swat. The media and the public were barred from the
hearings.]
By Declan Walsh
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Malala Yousafzai Credit
Paul Ellis/Agence
France-Presse — Getty
Images
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LONDON — Pakistani officials said
Friday that a court had released eight of the 10 men accused of conspiring in
the shooting of the schoolgirl activist Malala
Yousafzai, in an admission that brought new scrutiny of Pakistan’s
faltering efforts to try Islamist militants in the courts.
The men had been charged with organizing the 2012 attack on Ms.
Yousafzai, who was shot in the head as she traveled to school in the
northwestern Swat Valley. She survived her injuries and went on to become a
global symbol of defiance and an advocate for the education of girls, winning
the Nobel Peace Prize in December.
Although the Taliban gunmen
were believed to have fled to neighboring Afghanistan, the authorities
announced the arrest of 10 men and put them on trial in April at a military-run
internment center in Swat. The media and the public were barred from the
hearings.
When the trial ended on April 30, a prosecutor told reporters
that all 10 had confessed to a role in the attack, and the police said they had
been convicted and imprisoned for 25 years each.
But on Friday, when the court published its written judgment, it
revealed that only two of the accused men, identified as Izharullah Rehman and
Israrur Rehman, had been convicted and imprisoned, sentenced to life. The eight
others had been freed.
“They were released for lack of evidence,” said Azad Khan, the
regional deputy police chief, adding that the government would probably appeal
the decision.
Mr. Khan emphasized that there was “no conspiracy or mystery” in
the case and that the initial, mistaken reports of the convictions had stemmed
from the secretive nature of the trial.
Still, news of the eight men’s release offered an illustration
of the problems facing Pakistan’s
judicial system, where incompetence, intimidation and expediency can conspire
to frustrate justice in even the highest-profile cases.
Pakistani courts frequently try Islamist militants behind closed
doors to avoid threats against judges, police officers and witnesses. But such
trials are hampered by poor evidentiary standards and the security forces’
widely documented pattern of rounding up suspects, sometimes on flimsy grounds,
and of obtaining confessions through torture.
Conditions are particularly difficult in the Swat Valley, where
Ms. Yousafzai lived until the 2012 attack, because of continuing insecurity and
because civilian authority is largely subordinate to the military, which
mounted a major antimilitant operation in the valley in 2009.
In January, Pakistan’s Parliament voted to hand the military
sweeping powers to try suspected Taliban fighters.
In April, the military announced its first sentences in that system: six men
condemned to death, and a seventh sentenced to life imprisonment.
But the military’s authority to hand down such strong sentences
was challenged in the civilian courts, and the Supreme Court ruled that the sentences could
not be carried out. Legal arguments on the validity of the military courts continued
this week.
After the 2012 Taliban attack, Ms. Yousafzai was flown to
Britain for emergency treatment. Her global celebrity as a symbol of defiance
against the Taliban, and as a best-selling author and speaker, was cemented in
December when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside an Indian
rights activist, Kailash Satyarthi, and became the youngest-ever
Nobel laureate.
Now 17, Ms. Yousafzai lives with her family in Birmingham,
England, where she is attending secondary school. Continuing Taliban threats
have prevented her from returning to Pakistan, although she says she would like
to go home.
Despite the strong military presence in Swat, militants continue
to carry out sporadic attacks, often stealing into the valley from their hiding
places across the border in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
The Pakistani authorities say they believe that the four prime
suspects in the attack on Ms. Yousafzai — the Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah;
his spokesman, Sirajuddin; Habib ur-Rehman; and a militant known by a single
name, Abdullah — are hiding in Afghanistan.
Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.
