Shabbir Zaib

 Shabbir Zaib is a British National and a father of three who was arrested whilst on holiday in Pakistan in June 2008. He was accused of murdering his wife, and following torture by the police, he signed a confession. On February 4th 2010, after 17 agonising months behind bars Shabbir was finally acquitted and released from prison.

On the 29th of June 2008, four armed men entered Shabbir’s house. They tied and hooded Shabbir’s wife and mother-in-law. The men demanded rupees 27 lakhs and 20 toras of gold. Shabbir told the intruders they were being unreasonable because in this day and age nobody keeps so much money lying around in the house. One of the men shot Shabbir in his right leg. Shabbir’s wife started screaming and as a result they shot her twice in the head. She died instantly and the men fled the scene after shooting her.

Shabbir was taken to the hospital with his wife’s body. He launched an FIR (first information report) the same night at about 11:30pm. The police came to the hospital to take his statement. He was in extreme pain but was able to give his account to the police nevertheless. However, he was unable to go over his statement because of the pain he was in and was not aware that the police had amended certain things in his statement which formed the basis of the FIR.

Shabbir’s mother-in-law did not give a statement to the police at that time. However, eleven days later she gave a statement to the police stating that Shabbir had killed his wife and that she had been too traumatised to report this earlier.As a result Shabir was arrested.

From the moment he was arrested he was subjected to cruel treatment. Techniques used to force Shabbir into a confession included falaka – this consists of whipping the foot with a rod or a cane rendering him unable to walk. Falaka is favoured as a form of torture because, although it is extremely painful, it leaves few physical marks.

Shabbir describes this cruel treatment,

“I was told by the police that, “this is what we do”, and they told me that I needed to confess, but they did not tell me what I needed to confess to. Then the next night, they took me out and they tied me up. They then beat my feet. They hit me 15 times. It hurt so much that I almost fainted; it was like being hit with a knife. I told them that I wanted to help and would do whatever they wanted, so they went away and came back with a blank piece of paper that they wanted me to sign. I needed to sign it at the bottom and at various points up the side. The old man then told me that no-one would beat me any more, but I would have to stay there a few days. Later I worked out that this was because they needed to give my feet time to recover”

Investigation work by Reprieve revealed that witnesses had been encouraged to file witness reports against Shabbir, saying they had seen him shoot his wife. Thanks to the work of Shabbir’s lawyer, Ms Sarah Belal, and Reprieve Fellow Sultana Noon, the prosecution case was severely weakened, and various witnesses retracted their statements. Shabbir Zaib was acquitted, and is free to return to the UK.

“I am so glad that Sarah and Sultana were with me. All of the other prisoners were extremely jealous and could not understand why Sarah would come and visit me so often. They would ask, “Why is your lawyer so interested in your case?” First they asked if she was my wife and then they asked if she was family, but I just said that she was a good lawyer that cared about her clients. Now they all want Sarah to be their lawyer.”