Canadian | Pakistan

LAHORE: A judicial magistrate at the district courts on Friday dismissed the post-arrest bail petition of a Canadian national pursuing doctoral research in Pakistan in a cybercrime case. Magistrate Naeem Wattoo announced the decision while hearing the bail plea of Hamza Ahmad Khan, after arguments from the prosecution and defence. Khan was booked by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) for targeting state institutions and leadership through “disseminating misinformation and disinformation” under sections 20 (offences against the dignity of a natural person), 24 (cyber stalking) and 26A (spoofing) of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act. During the proceedings, the investigating officer (IO) told the court that the suspect had been uploading “derogatory posts against the state functionaries and state institutions with the intention to harm the reputation of the state functionaries”. On behalf of the petitioner, Advocate Asad Jamal argued that the suspect had been falsely implicated in the c...

LAHORE: A judicial magistrate at a district court on Wednesday issued a notice to the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) while hearing a bail petition of a Canadian national who was arrested in a cybercrime case. Hamza Ahmed Khan, who was pursuing doctoral research, had reportedly gone missing last week, leading to the registration of a first information report. He turned up in NCCIA’s custody on Monday and was sent to jail on judicial remand. Subsequently, he filed for post-arrest bail. On Wednesday, Advocate Asad Jamal appeared before the magistrate on behalf of Khan. During the hearing, the magistrate directed the NCCIA’s investigating officer to submit a record of the case on Thursday. In his petition, the applicant alleged that he was abducted on the night between Feb 18 and 19, while travelling in a cab in Lahore. The petitioner claimed that the first information report (FIR) against him by the FIA’s cyber crime wing was registered a day later on Feb 21, with “malafide intentions” to conc...

LAHORE: A Canadian national pursuing doctoral research, who went missing last week, has turned up in the custody of the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA). The agency on Monday produced Hamza Ahmad Khan before a magistrate, who sent him to jail for 14 days on judicial remand. On Sunday, police registered a case on kidnapping charges on the complaint of his friend. According to the first information report, Hamza went missing in the early hours of Feb 19 after leaving his residence in DHA Phase 10, according to the first information report (FIR) registered at the Defence-A police station. On Monday, it emerged that Hamza was in NCCIA custody for allegedly making anti-state posts on social media platforms X and Instagram. In the FIR registered against him by the NCCIA, the cybercrime agency said that during routine cyber patrols, accounts associated with Hamza were actively “disseminating misinformation and disinformation targeting the state institutions”. The FIR, a copy of which is available wi...

LAHORE: Police on Saturday registered a kidnapping case against unidentified suspects after a Canadian national pursuing doctoral research allegedly went missing in Lahore three days ago. A police station in Defence Housing Authority registered the case under kidnapping charges on the complaint of Yousif Rasheed, a friend of the Canadian citizen who has been identified as Hamza Ahmad. According to the first information report (FIR), Ahmad arrived in Pakistan on February 13 to work on his PhD thesis and was staying with his friend in DHA Phase 10. The complainant stated that Ahmad had booked a cab and left the home between 1am and 2am on February 19 but did not return. He said that the friends searched for Ahmad on their own but were unable to trace his whereabouts. The FIR stated that unknown persons may have kidnapped Ahmed, requesting legal action against those responsible. Lahore Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Operations Faisal Kamran confirmed to Dawn that a kidnapping case had been registered against uni...

The suspect in a deadly school shooting in western Canada was an 18-year-old woman with mental health issues who killed her mother and stepbrother before attacking her former school, police said on Wednesday, but investigators did not offer a motive for one of the worst mass slaughters in Canadian history. The killer, who police identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, died by suicide after the shooting on Tuesday in Tumbler Ridge, a remote community of 2,400 people in the Pacific province of British Columbia. Police revised the death toll down to nine, including Van Rootselaar, from the initially reported ten. On more than one occasion, Van Rootselaar had been apprehended under the provincial Mental Health Act for an assessment, said Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, commander of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia. She once attended the school but dropped out four years ago. “Police had attended that (family) residence on multiple occasions over the past several years, dealing with concerns ...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed on Saturday he apologised to United States President Donald Trump over an anti-tariff ad featuring former US leader Ronald Reagan and had told Ontario Premier Doug Ford not to run it. Trump announced he would be hiking tariffs on Canadian goods by an additional 10 per cent and terminated all trade talks following what he called the “fake” anti-tariff ad campaign. “I did apologise to the president. The president was offended,” Carney told journalists in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, adding trade talks would restart when the US is “ready”. Carney also confirmed that he had reviewed the ad with Ford before it aired, but said he had opposed using it. “I told Ford I did not want to go forward with the ad,” he said. The ad, commissioned by Ford, an outspoken Conservative politician who is sometimes compared to Trump, uses a snippet of Republican icon and former president Reagan saying that tariffs cause trade wars and economic disaster. Carney also called talks wit...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand discussed the strengthening of bilateral trade and cooperation between the two countries, the Foreign Office (FO) said on Friday. In a statement, the FO said Dar received a call the previous evening from Anand. “The two leaders discussed strengthening bilateral trade and investment, including sectors such as agriculture and mines and minerals, and collaboration under the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA),” the FO said. It added that the Canadian foreign minister thanked Dar for facilitating market access for imports of Canadian canola to Pakistan. “Both leaders appreciated recent constructive engagements, reaffirmed their commitment to advancing mutually beneficial economic cooperation,” the FO said, adding that the two foreign ministers agreed to remain in close contact. Anand also commented on her phone call with Dar in a post on social media platform X. “We discussed a range of issues ...