Benazir murder case: Musharraf’s ‘victimisation’ plea baseless, says FIA

FIA says warrants would remain intact till execution or surrender of accused before law in Pakistan.


Mudassir Raja May 21, 2012

RAWALPINDI:


In response to a letter from Interpol, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has reassured the organisation that warrants issued for the arrest of former president Pervez Musharraf are still intact. The response added that he is a proclaimed offender in the assassination case of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.


The FIA said in the letter that the warrants were valid perpetual arrest warrants and would remain intact till the execution or surrender of the accused before law in Pakistan. In a letter, Interpol had asked the federal government early last month whether the warrants issued on June 11, 2011 were still valid.

The FIA explained in the letter that Musharraf’s plea that he was politically victimised was baseless as a case of criminal conspiracy to eliminate the former prime minister was pending against him in Pakistan, FIA prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told The Express Tribune.

On Saturday, an anti-terrorism court case reserved its verdict on two applications asking for the detachment (undo the decision to seize assets) of the residence and charity organisation bank account of Musharraf.

Special Judge ATC-I Shahid Rafique deferred the decision on the applications till May 26 after both the defence lawyers and prosecutors concluded their arguments.

The legal adviser of Habib Metropolitan Bank argued before the court to detach the account containing Rs75 million as the account belonged to the Pervez Musharraf Foundation, a charity organisation. He argued that under criminal procedural laws only personal accounts could be attached after an accused was declared proclaimed offender.

In response, FIA prosecutor Zulfiqar said that under the procedures of the State Bank of Pakistan, personal accounts could not be used for the collection and disbursement of charity money.

He further said the Pervez Musharraf Foundation was registered in London as a welfare trust, and it could not collect money in Pakistan as relevant laws did not allow for this. The prosecutor added that the bank authorities had no legal grounds to challenge the decision as they were not aggrieved by the orders of the ATC.

In the second application, Sehba Musharraf, the wife of the former president, argued that her husband gifted the house in Chak Shahzad to her four years ago and since it was no longer his property, it could not be seized through court orders.

In its reply, the FIA claimed that had there been any gift deed it would have been registered and the house transferred to her name. However, the house is still owned by Musharraf according to documents.

The prosecutor said the accused Musharraf, after being declared a proclaimed offender, could not ask for any relief until he surrendered before the court of law.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21st, 2012.

COMMENTS (7)

Abdul Hafeez | 11 years ago | Reply

@Billo: If Musharraf has created problems for others, they are not in power today. He discarded the politics of vendetta but PPP, PML-N, and others are still as same as they were in 90s. I am tired of hearing same statements from them, same leg-pulling, same number-scoring, same corruption cases that were in 90s. Pakistan was rapidly progressing in this man era and he deserves to be in power again with legitimate means which is unexpected with this illiterate nation.

NoFear | 11 years ago | Reply That's what happen when a dictator don't finish his job following the foot steps of his predecessors. A "lone wolf" who thought he was a loyal Pakistani. What he didn't know was his country don't work for it's own future. ``But it definitely work for Middle Eastern Oil States and their U.N Agenda, IMF agenda, Capitalist states' Agenda, Overseas Islamic States's Fundamentalist Agenda, Occupied Secular-Muslim States' Agenda, Chinese Agenda, ambiguous-Status Kashmir Agenda, maybe Iranian, Afghani, Iraqi, Cuban, Brazilian, or maybe IMF, Bata, Nestle, Pharmaceutical, Citibank, Western Insurance Co's Agenda.
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