Latest – by Peter Van BurenPolice in sometime-U.S. ally Pakistan arrested a nine month old infant, along with his family, for an alleged assassination attempt on the cops who raided the family home. The cops went on to charge the infant with assault, claiming he pelting them with stones.
This is not a story from the Onion. The case actually went to court, where the baby cried throughout the trial as lawyers of both sides argued the case. The baby also was visibly upset as his grandfather was made to hold his thumb to dip it in ink and put its print on the bail bonds, as the tot could not sign the documents himself. At other points the defendent was quieter, busy suckling on his pacifier and bottle. The perp is pictured above.
The judge judiciously granted interim bail to the accused infant and adjourned the hearing until April 12. At some point a more rational government employee took notice of the case in the local media and intervened, actually punishing the police officers involved and dropping charges against the child.
The child, not yet able to talk, made no comment.
The incident began when police raided the family home to cut off the gas to the house for non-payment. The family patriarch and two older relatives did indeed throw stones at the cops, and attacked them with wooden clubs, causing the police to run for their lives. Under Pakistani law, it is common in such cases to simply charge the entire extended family, men, women and apparently, children. The cops, in their defense, claim they didn’t bother to find out the extended family included an infant. There was no explanation offered as to why, after learning they had arrested a baby, the charges were not immediately dropped.
The U.S. has given Pakistan over $7.5. billion in aid over the last five years, almost $21 billion since 2002. Among the goals allegedly supported by all that taxpayer money of yours is this one:
…Promoting effective, accountable, democratic governance; respect for human rights; and well-being.
Additional U.S. goals include “A government that is transparent, responsive to citizens’ needs” and “develop citizens’ ability to act as partners with government.”
It may be that the U.S. money is not accomplishing it’s goals. “One of the things we should be doing is training the police, but we’re not doing it…. Pakistanis are not letting us. They want the Army to do everything,” says C. Christine Fair, assistant professor at Georgetown University in Washington.
Indeed.
(c) Peter Van Buren
Image via The Nation Newspaper of Pakistan
Twitter: @latest_com
http://latest.com/2014/04/police-arrest-9-month-old-infant-on-murder-charges/
Who cares? Where is Pakistan, anyway? Does Henry have the night off?
This has got to be BS – things like this could only happen in NY
At the risk of repeating myself…
INSANITY ABOUNDS!!!
Things like this used to happen in the colonies we now call the united states. This action known by the crown as “corruption of the blood” was used to attack an individual through his family. Common Law killed this to a degree BUT the crown often ignored the rules and dragged the person into the HATED Admiralty court as chattel/property of the crown. A modern variation on this is the Forfeiture Laws that work off a similar scam. We shot the assholes out of our country and demanded that under NO circumstances would this be allowed here. Guess we will be doing it again. Liberty1775 is the answer. (Pakistan needs to drop the Crown Law this child was charged under) MGK
Yes, we sanction this shit! The more insane it sounds, the more “on board” we are. It’s like we’re “opposite George” on that Seinfeld episode when George did everything opposite and stuff just seemed to work out for him.