Spain turns down plea of city bizman’s family

Even as Roshan Jamal Khan, the Jogeshwari resident jailed in Spain on terror charges, completed 1,000 days behind the bar, the Spanish king and the government refused to intervene and set him free.

Even as Roshan Jamal Khan, the Jogeshwari resident jailed in Spain on terror charges, completed 1,000 days behind the bar, the Spanish king and the government refused to intervene and set him free.

HT Image

King Juan Carlos I and the Spanish authorities said they could not intervene in the work of the judiciary which functions independently and beyond their purview.

However, Jacobo Teijolo Casanova, the Spanish lawyer hired by Khan's family, maintained that his client's protracted incarceration smacked of political pressure.

The reply from the two authorities came after Khan's wife Farida wrote to them seeking their intervention in setting Khan free. Farida, in her letter written in June, had said that her husband had been acquitted and absolved of charges of possession of explosive materials and conspiring to indulge in terror acts. "He was convicted only on the charge of associating with terror groups, the substantiation of which can be said to be invalid and erroneous," she said.

A letter from the Spanish president's office said that according to their constitution, only judges and magistrates could execute courts. Casanova, however, has said that the Supreme Court must acquit Khan, but is unwilling to do so on account of extraneous consideration, politics to be precise.

Khan's brother Mehboob said the Spanish authorities at least bothered to reply. "We have been writing to the Indian government but there hasn't been any response. I don't understand why there is such a silence from our government,” he said.

Khan was picked up by the Spanish authorities from a mosque in Barcelona on January 19, 2008, in connection with an alleged terror plot.