After ex-ISI chief Faiz Hameed, Pakistan arrests 3 more senior retired army officers
Aug. 15, 2024, 1:33 p.m.
Read time estimation: 3 minutes.
2
Following the unprecedented arrest of former Pakistani spy chief Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, three other former high-ranking army officers have been apprehended.
On Monday, the Pakistani military announced the arrest of Hameed, the former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He is facing a court-martial on charges of corruption and abuse of authority.
Hameed stands as the first head of the ISI, Pakistan's influential intelligence agency, to face a court-martial. In Pakistan, where the military has held significant power for nearly half of its history, the ISI chief is widely considered to be the second most powerful individual after the army chief.
Advertisement The fresh arrests of three other officers have come for “actions prejudicial to military discipline”, said the military in a statement carried by Reuters.
The statement added that the military continued to investigate some retired officers and their accomplices for “fomenting instability at the behest of, and in collusion with, vested political interests”, as per the news agency.
Although the statement did not explicitly identify the officers apprehended, The Express Tribune has determined that two of the three detained individuals are former Brigadiers Ghaffar and Naeem.
The newspaper reported that both the retired brigadiers were allegedly involved in a covert operation to aid political liaisons. They were also close associated of Hameed and hailed from Pakistani Punjab’s Chakwal city.
Even though Hameed has been said to be arrested in connection with a case of pressurising a builder by misusing his position, his arrest has been seen as part of Pakistan’s political churn. Hameed was deemed close to former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was unceremoniously ousted in 2022 in a trust vote. Accused in more than 100 cases, he has been in jail for more than a year after making an enemy out of the all-powerful military-intelligence establishment.
Hameed was considered so close to Imran that his removal from the ISI by the then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was believed to have created a rift between him and Khan. This rift is said to have contributed to Imran's strained relationship with the army. Since his removal from office, Imran has alleged that the army, the then-opposition parties, and the United States were involved in a conspiracy to remove him from power.
The case against Hameed formally stems from allegations of misconduct by the owner of a private housing society, Kanwar Moeez Khan of Islamabad's Top City, as reported by Dawn.
According to the newspaper, Khan accused Hameed of raiding his offices and stealing valuables, including approximately 400 tola gold, cash, and diamonds. He further accused Hameed of illegally taking control of the housing society.
