ISLAMABAD: The Senate’s Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday referred to the Committee on Interior the case of 32-year-old Pakistani Omar Mateen who went missing in the UAE in March 2014.
When the issue was first raised in the Senate’s Foreign Committee over a year ago the Foreign Affairs Ministry took it up with the UAE authorities a number of times but to no avail.
According to the authorities in Dubai, Mateen, an accountant in a private firm, was involved in embezzlement of 1.5 million dirhams in March 2014. Another Pakistani Ameer Khan was his co-accused. Khan was arrested and sentenced and returned to Pakistan in December 2014. The authorities also maintained that according to unconfirmed reports Mateen was out of the UAE and had likely escaped to Pakistan. They also maintained that Mateen disappeared, tried in absentia and sentenced to three years in jail. They also maintained that it was not a case of a missing person but of an accused at large.
Senator Farhatullah Babar had asked whether the surveillance system at Dubai airport had recorded Mateen’s movement and whether his mobile phone data had been obtained for investigation.
He also said that according to the initial reply received Mateen was missing and there was no mention he had already been tried in absentia and sentenced. But it had now revealed that he had been sentenced in absentia. He said that since several queries made to the authorities in Dubai by the Pakistani mission had failed in securing satisfactory response the matter should be raised at a higher level with the UAE government.
