In a bizarre development, the Pakistan Army has launched a court-martial against Lieutenant General (retd) Faiz Hameed, who was until recently the director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
It follows a detailed court of inquiry that found multiple instances of violation of the Pakistan Army Act by the former spymaster, the military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), announced in a press release on Monday.
The ISPR stated this while pointing out that the court martial process was set in motion as a result of orders received from the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which had taken notice of ‘allegations of an extremely serious nature’ against Lt. Gen. Hameed in connection with the mismanagement of a private housing scheme called Top City.
But there is more: the owner of the scheme, Moeez Khan, a relative of Lt. Gen. Hameed, claimed that Sardar Najaf forced him to give 4 crore rupees in cash and to “sponsor a private TV network” for the former chief spymaster’s gang members. The allegations, if found correct, would ‘undoubtedly lower the image of the federal government, the armed forces, ISI and Pakistan Rangers, ’ The Supreme Court had said.
Most people considered the military’s decision to court martial the retired general as a rare decree of getting to answer at the top of the country’s security forces’ chain of command. Lt. Gen Hameed, one of the key contenders to be the next army chief in 2022, has been embarrassing Pakistan for nearly a decade now, sleeping through the Faizabad sit-in in 2017, leading to later convictions of the former prime minister Nawaz Sherif and Maryam Sherif.
The ISPR statement said that the former intelligence chief had been arrested by the military authorities because a field general court martial had been launched against him. The verdict in the court martial case will be keenly observed, especially since it might set the frame for the country’s civil-military relations.
