Jabir Motiwala back in Pakistan with a miraculous lease of life

LONDON: Karachi businessman Jabir Motiwala has reached Karachi after the United States of America (USA) officially dropped his extradition request to the US to face charges of Class-A drug importation, money-laundering and alleged links with Dawood Ibrahim.

Sources at the Home Office confirmed that Jabir Motiwala – whose real name is Jabir Siddiq – was freed on Wednesday from the high-security Wandsworth prison after spending 32 months in a high security prison on American extradition request.

This reporter has seen court papers, including a sealed order by Mr Justice Jay on 13 April, which confirms that the Secretary of State Priti Patel informed the court on 9 April 2021 that the US Government has withdrawn the extradition request.

Mr Justice Jay has written in his Order that following consideration of the documents lodged by the Secretary of State, Jabir Motiwala (The Appellant) be discharged under section 124(3)(a) of the Extradition Act 2003.

The Order said: “The order for the Appellant’s extradition made by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 93(4) of the Act, on 15 October 2018 be quashed under section 124(3)(b) of the Extradition Act 2003. The Appellant will no longer be on bail for these matters.”

On the day the High Court Judge sealed the order (13 April 2021), the Home Office arranged for the COVID test of Jabir Motiwala which returned negative on the same day.

Yesterday (Wednesday) Jabir took a flight from London to Karachi to spend time with his family after nearly three years of the most gruelling mental torture and imprisonment amongst some of the most dangerous inmates who are kept at the South London prison.

When Jabir Motiwala arrived in London on August 18, 2019 from Cyprus to meet his friends and to visit London, he would have never imagined that within hours he will be arrested from Edgware Road’s Hilton Hotel on the charges that warrant life sentence and death in US prison arrangements.

There was zero hope for him and the whole legal challenge looked like an exercise in buying some more time and then came the miraculous turnaround of things that hardly anyone could have planned or engineered. The Karachi businessman now literally has got another lease of life.

Deepak Vij and Amirah Ajaz of ABV solicitors confirmed that their client has safely reached Pakistan.