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Legal assistance treaty gets SAARC approval

COLOMBO: The 15th SAARC Summit here on Saturday approved the SAARC Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT).

The treaty is considered path-breaking as it enables greater cooperation among security forces of SAARC Member-States to track, arrest and handover criminals and terrorists.

The pact is considered significant as proposals for extradition treaties among most of the Member-States are still being negotiated. However, it is immediately not clear if the treaty would help members in cases where requests for extradition of identified persons are pending, particularly in the absence of an acceptable definition of terrorism.

For instance, India and Pakistan have given each other ‘list of wanted persons’ supposedly sheltered in each other’s country. However, neither country has acted on the request on the plea that either the persons mentioned are not in their territory or not considered terrorists or criminals.

The treaty’s objective is to strengthen two SAARC conventions on Terrorism and Drug Trafficking. However, there was no consensus on two major provisions of the proposed treaty. These were on participation by the requesting parties’ security officers in evidence-taking and incorporation of the word ‘terrorism’ with respect to tracking funds meant for financing acts of terrorism. The heads of state also decided on early finalisation of the standard operating protocol to help victims of trafficking and decided to develop a pan-SAARC toll-free helpline for women (1091) and one for children (1098).

The MLAT would be the implementing mechanism for two conventions on terrorism and drug trafficking.

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