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In a major development, Pakistan army on Thursday announced major punishment to senior army officers including a retired three-star general and a brigadier for espionage for foreign intelligence agencies. General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of Army Staff (CoAS), endorsed the punishment to two military officers and a civilian officer on the charges of espionage/leakage of sensitive information to foreign agencies prejudice to the national security.

The officers were tried under the Pakistan Army Act (PAA) and the Official Secret Act by separate Field General Court Marshals (FGCMs) for separate cases. The court awarded 14-year rigorous imprisonment to Lieutenant-General Javed Iqbal (retd) and death sentence to Brigadier Raja Rizwan (retd) and a civilian Dr Wasim Akram (employed at sensitive organisation).

Brigadier Rizwan was taken into custody from sector G-10 of Islamabad in October last year. He retired from service in 2014. While in army, "he held the most sensitive and prestigious appointments including his tenure as military attaché of Pakistan in Austria and Germany for three years from 2009 to 2012". General Awan joined Frontier Force Regiment. He held highest and top most appointments and remained as instructor in Pakistan Military Academy, Command and Staff College and then remained as 111 brigade commander as a Brigadier.

As a Major General, he commanded infantry division at Bahawalpur, Infantry division at Jhelum and then remained as Director General Military Operations at GHQ. As Lieutenant General he remained as Adjutant General Pakistan Army and then commanded corps at Bhawalpur. According to sources, General Awan trapped by the foreign agency through a group that introduced him as software engineers and requested him to assist them in designing a video game and then extracted some sensitive information from him.

Director General Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) in February announced that two senior servicemen had been arrested and facing investigations for espionage charges. "Two senior military officials are under custody on charges of espionage. They are not part of a network and the army chief has ordered their court martial," said Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Major-General Asif Ghafoor while addressing an especially convened news conference in Islamabad. The military spokesperson said the arrested officials were not part of any network and facing court martial charges in separate cases.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019


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