Family Appeals For Release Of Peshawar Businessman On Death Row In Indonesia

Muhammad Riaz belongs to Warsak Road, Peshawar, and had been associated with the furniture export business for several decades, but for the past 10 years he has been serving a death sentence in an Indonesian jail.

Abdul Samad, the 20-year-old son of Muhammad Riaz, says that when his father was arrested in early 2016, he was only 10 years old and did not even know why his father had been arrested. However, as time passed and he grew older, he came to know that his father had been jailed in a false narcotics case, and a few months after his arrest he was handed a death sentence, which is like dying every day while living.

According to Abdul Samad, his father was engaged in the furniture export business, not from today but since the 1990s. Most of his exports were to Turkey, Cyprus, Germany, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. From 2013 he chose Indonesia for export, where he also rented a warehouse to store his goods, and some Indonesians also worked with him there.

He said that since his father's export was now going to Indonesia, with the consent of the family he also married an Indonesian woman. With her he had sufficient space, i.e., the warehouse, so some Pakistanis requested them to rent a small space in the warehouse for one month. On this, Muhammad Riaz replied that he himself was a tenant and could not rent it out, and that they should speak to the owner of the warehouse. Later, an agreement was made with the warehouse owner. After that, a consignment of generators imported from China by those Pakistanis arrived, which was then stored in the warehouse.

According to Abdul Samad, in February 2016, when his father was about to return to Pakistan, two days before his departure, as soon as he entered the warehouse, a raid took place shortly after, and during the search drugs were recovered from the generator. His father, his wife, the clearing agent, and the warehouse owner were arrested.

After a few months of investigation, his father was sentenced to death. His wife was released after serving three years in prison. The clearing agent also came out after spending some time, while the warehouse owner is still inside. Nevertheless, his father has been imprisoned for 10 years in a false case. To sentence someone to death is like dying every day while living.

Now, since his father is imprisoned, he alone knows the full situation about who were the people who brought the generators from China - only his father can tell. For years they can barely manage to contact their father once, that too for one minute or less. To make a call from there, money has to be paid, which his father does not have.

He said that according to the Indonesian agent, the generator consignment had no connection with Riaz. Despite such a strong testimony, his father is still kept inside. His mother, brothers, and he himself no longer have the strength to go to anyone's door and plead with them. There is no door that we have not knocked on, but we have not received any good news from anywhere.

According to Samad, in this case they have so far spent 20 million rupees. Most of the money has been given to lawyers in Indonesia, but unfortunately, the Indonesian lawyers only extracted money from them.

Abdul Samad's mother and brothers have once again appealed to the Government of Pakistan, and especially to the Foreign Minister, to talk to the Indonesian government on this important issue and play their role in securing their father's release. They said that they have full faith in their father's innocence, and that he has nothing to do with these narcotics.

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