Imran Khan seeks British justice for Karachi killings

Islamabad, June 2: Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan left for London today to launch legal proceedings there against a rival he blames for clashes in Karachi last month in which 40 people were killed.

Khan aims to have a British court try Altaf Hussain, as the founder of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has British citizenship and has been living there for more than a decade.

''The idea is to bring him to justice,'' Khan told reporters at the Islamabad International airport. ''Clearly we cannot do so in Pakistan.'' ''The reign of terrorism and fascism that Altaf Hussain unleashed on May 12 is also about to end,'' Khan said.

Khan says members of his Tehrik-e-Insaf party (Movement of Justice) were targeted on May 12 when gun battles broke out between government supporters and opposition party workers who had come out on the streets to greet a judge who has become a symbol of resistance to President Pervez Musharraf's authority.

MQM, a partner in the ruling coalition and dominant party in Karachi, has backed Musharraf's moves to replace Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Opposition parties and lawyers have seized on the issue as an attack on the independence of the judiciary, and created the most serious challenge to General Musharraf, since he came to power in a coup in 1999.

Khan's accusation against Hussain provoked protests in Karachi earlier this week, prompting the MQM-dominated provincial government to impose a 30-day ban on his entry into Sindh province, due to fears of more strife.

Although last month's violence in Karachi stemmed from the judicial crisis gripping Pakistan, there are fears that it could resurrect ethnic violence that dogged the southern city in the 1980s and 1990s.

Khan is a Pashtun, an ethnic group from northwest Pakistan, though one of the largest urban concentrations of Pashtuns is in Karachi.

The MQM represents mohajirs, Urdu speakers, like Musharraf's own family, who migrated from northern India during the partition of the Sub-Continent 60 years ago.

Reuters>