ISLAMABAD: A high court bench, on Monday, sought comments from an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on an intra-court appeal filed for the release of a Pakistani prisoner, detained at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

During the hearing, Deputy Attorney General Asad Rajput told the Islamabad High Court (IHC) division bench consisting of Justice Noorul Haq N. Qureshi and Justice Aamir Farooq that the IMC was likely to meet in two week`s time to discuss issues related to the prisoners detained in foreign countries.

According to the DAG, the committee consists of the interior minister, the PM special assistant on foreign affairs and secretaries from the foreign and interior ministries. He also said that the committee would submit its report a couple of weel(s after the meeting.

Subsequently, the bench put off the hearing for a fortnight.

The petitioner, Mohammad Shafi, informed the court through his counsel that his brother-in-law Mohammad Ahmed Ghulam Rabbani was one of the men that had been handed over to the US as one of the prisoners transferred during the war against terror.

He said Rabbani had been picked up by Pakistani intelligence officials in 2001 and handed over to the US authorities without being charged or given the right to defend himself.

In January 2002, Rabbani was flown to Islamabad and handed over to a group of US intelligence officials and in August of that year, he was transferred to an unofficial underground prison near Kabul, where he was kept for a year and subjected to torture.

In August 2003, Rabbani was transferred to the prison at Bagram airbase, where the cruel treatment continued, the petitioner maintaine d.

In January 2004, the prisoner was shifted to Guantanamo Bay, where he has been receiving terrible treatment until now, the appeal claimed.

The appeal said that details about Rabbani`s abduction, his torture and subsequent rendition to US authorities and the torture in prisons in Pakistan and Afghanistan and subsequent transfer to Guantanamo Bay had been provided by an American lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, in an affidavit duly attested by the Pakistan High Commission in London.

It contended that the capture and subsequent detention of Rabbani were a violation of both Pakistani and international laws and requested the court to direct the authorities to take up the matter with US officials.