ATC sends Dr Asim to jail

PPP leader has been charged for harbouring militants in Karachi's Ziauddin hospital

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court in Karachi on Tuesday sent Pakistan Peoples Party leader and close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari, Dr Asim Hussain, to jail over charges of harbouring militants in Karachi's Ziauddin hospital.

The court directed the National Accountability Bureau to produce the close confidante of former president Asif Ali Zardari in an accountability court on Wednesday.

Further, adjourning the case till December 30, the ATC also ordered that copies of all prosecution documents, including statements of witnesses, be handed over.

On Monday, the court rejected the police investigation report clearing the former minister of terrorism charges and ordered his re-arrest for a trial in an anti-terrorism court (ATC).

Sindh High Court’s Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, who oversees the ATCs, discarded the report observing there was sufficient evidence against Dr Asim. He then ordered the suspect to be presented before the ATC-II for initiating the trial today.



Dr Asim, chairman of the Sindh Higher Education Commission and a friend of former president Asif Ali Zardari, is facing charges of abetting and harbouring terrorists at his family-owned hospitals in Karachi.

After spending 90 days in the custody of paramilitary Rangers, who detained him on August 26, he was handed over to the Karachi police for further interrogation. The police, however, relieved him of the charges and got him released, sparking a tussle between the federal and provincial governments.