'Can't use Lakhvi's voice samples as evidence'

Mumbai terror attack mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi's voice samples cannot be used as evidence as their is no law to prove its authenticity, a media report said on Saturday.

"Though it might be helpful in the course of investigation but the audio allegedly recorded by the Indian intelligence cannot be used as evidence as there is no law under which the authenticity of the voice could be proved," a senior prosecutor in the case told Dawn.

Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has said Lakhvi's voice samples cannot be used as evidence as they are irrelevant to the trial, ther media report said.

FIA special prosecutor Mohammad Azhar Chaudhry told Dawn that "there is no law in Pakistan that allows the prosecution to forcibly obtain the voice sample of an accused. There is no such law in India and the US".

"We cannot force the accused to give their voice sample."

In 2011, the FIA had gone to the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to obtain the voice samples of Lakhvi and his co-accused Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jamil, Jamil Ahmed and Younas Anjum currently confined in Adiala Jail.

The petition is still pending in the high court.