Practice Area

Extradition & Interpol Red Notices

We defend persons in Pakistan against surrender under the Extradition Act 1972, and persons abroad against red notices and warrants issued at Pakistan's request. The work runs from the enquiry magistrate to the Ministry of Interior, and from the High Courts to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files in Lyon.

Extradition and red notice work is about timing more than anything else. The client who calls before travelling has options: the notice can be challenged, the list placement reviewed, the return negotiated. The client who calls from an airport holding room has fewer. So the first task in every matter is a map — every warrant, notice, proclamation, and list entry outstanding against the client, in every country — because the fight cannot be planned until the whole board is visible.

The proceedings are hybrid: part law, part government. The magistrate's enquiry under the 1972 Act is a judicial process, but surrender is ultimately a federal decision, and the Exit Control List is administrative from start to finish. We work both tracks — the legal challenge on the record, and the representation to the ministry with the material that lets the government decline or defer. Neither substitutes for the other.

Pakistan's extradition arrangements rest on bilateral treaties of varying age, on multilateral conventions, and on the 1972 Act; which instrument governs a given request must be established at the outset, and the treaty position with several states remains unsettled [TREATY STATUS — TO BE VERIFIED PER COUNTRY]. The framework described on this page is stated as of mid-2026 and is confirmed, country by country, at the start of every engagement.

How We Serve

An inbound request under the Extradition Act 1972 moves in two stages: a magisterial enquiry into whether the evidence and the treaty support surrender, and a decision by the federal government. We contest both — dual criminality, the political-offence exception, the sufficiency of the record — and where the process itself goes wrong, we take it to the High Court under Article 199.

A red notice is not an arrest warrant, but at a border it works like one. We apply to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files for access to the notice and for its correction or deletion, arguing non-compliance with Article 2 and Article 3 of INTERPOL's Constitution where the case is political in character or the underlying proceedings offend basic fairness. A notice grounded in a commercial dispute dressed as fraud is a familiar pattern, and the Commission has removed such notices.

Placement on the Exit Control List under the Exit from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance 1981 is often the first sign a client is under investigation. We file the representation to the Ministry of Interior under the review procedure, and where it fails or time does not allow it, we petition the High Court, which has repeatedly required the government to justify a placement with reasons. We handle passport impoundment and cancellation under the Passports Act 1974 on the same footing.

For a client outside Pakistan with a warrant, a proclamation under sections 87 and 88 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898, or an accountability case moving in absence, we assess the exposure honestly: what attaches, what can be defended from abroad, and what requires presence. Where return is the right course, we structure it — protective bail arranged before landing, surrender on agreed terms — so the client walks into a courtroom rather than a lock-up.

The Mutual Legal Assistance (Criminal Matters) Act 2020 gives Pakistan a statutory channel for evidence and asset requests in both directions. We advise persons and companies whose records or property are caught by an incoming request, contest freezing and production made at a foreign state's instance, and advise on the limits of what the Act and the underlying treaties permit.

These matters are rarely fought in one country. We instruct and take instructions from counsel in the requesting and requested states, keep the factual account identical in every forum, and sequence the proceedings so that a filing in one jurisdiction does not become an exhibit against the client in another.

Representative Matters