Inter-Services Intelligence accused of kidnapping and torturing 11 men, four of whom have been found dead

Pakistan's all-powerful military will this week face a rare challenge by the courts over the case of 11 men who were allegedly abducted and tortured by the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency .

The case, due to be heard on Friday, will offer a window into the workings of the ISI and its sister agency, Military Intelligence, and charges that they have made hundreds of Pakistanis disappear.

Four of the 11 men kidnapped from the high security Adiala jail in Rawalpindi in May 2010 have turned up dead in recent months. The families of the rest are petitioning the court for their return. Although apparently terrorist suspects, they have not been charged with any crime.

Before the hearing, the military stated in a written response to the court that they would not bring the remaining men before the judges, as had been ordered by the court, arguing that some were in such poor health that they could not be produced. Critics said this only confirmed the allegations of mistreatment.

The case is also a test for the supreme court, which is accused of pursuing a single-minded campaign against President Asif Zardari and his government, an agenda that plays into the hands of the military.

"This is a historic case. It is the first time the ISI has confessed to holding people," said Amina Janjua, chairperson of Defence of Human Rights, a group that campaigns for Pakistan's disappeared. "The courts are nothing in front of the agencies. The agencies think they are the masters. The ones who were killed did not die natural deaths. Their bodies were blue and black."

The intelligence agencies are allegedly responsible for over 1,000 disappearances since 2001, of whom about 500 are still missing, while in the western province of Baluchistan, dumped bodies of dissidents are regularly found.

Four of the remaining seven detainees in this case are now being held at the Lady Reading hospital in Peshawar, while the three others are being kept at a facility in Parachinar, a tribal area close to the Afghan border.

Abdul Qudoos, the brother of three of the detainees, said he believed they had been given "slow poison". In January this year his family received a phone call to pick up the body of one of his brothers, Abdur Saboor, 29, from an ambulance parked outside Peshawar. "His arms were as thin as sugar cane. Just a skull and skin left of him," said Qudoos.

Lawyers for the ISI told the court that those kept at the hospital were not in a condition to be produced before the court, while those held in Parachinar could be brought only after a "highly confidential" letter from the "internment authority" is considered by the court.

"The allegation of poison and torture, contained in the petition [from the families] is without any shred of evidence," the military's response said. "These are wild, diabolical and vicious allegations against a superior agency of the country."

The military claims that the men, who were ordered to be freed by the courts from Adiala jail, were abducted by people pretending to be intelligence agents and says that it rescued them during anti-Taliban operations in the tribal area.

"These men were in good condition. How did their health deteriorate?" said Inam ul Rahiem, a lawyer for the families.

According to the families, all the men were picked up by intelligence agents in late 2007 and early 2008 and abducted by the spy agencies a second time, from the jail. The men were all highly religious and many were associated with Islamabad's radical Red Mosque. Qudoos's brothers used to supply the mosque with copies of the Qur'an and other religious texts.

"The lies of the agencies have been exposed but they keep telling them," said Qudoos. "These private jails and torture cells, which are in every district, must be closed."