Former president Pervez Musharraf. PHOTO: FILE
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday extended the judicial remand of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for another 14 days in the judges’ detention case.
During the hearing on Saturday, the investigation officer in the case informed the ATC that police had appointed Malik Amir Nadeem as the new prosecutor in the case after his predecessor, Syed Muhammad Tayyab, disassociated himself from the case.
Musharraf’s counsel Advocate Ilyas Siddiqui pointed out that the main complainant, Advocate Chaudhry Aslam Ghuman, had also disassociated himself from the case. However, he had not submitted a written statement before the court regarding his decision. Ghuman said that he has made the decision “in the interest of the country”.
Nadeem requested the court to grant him extra time so he could prepare the case.
Meanwhile, the ATC extended the judicial remand for another two weeks and adjourned the proceedings till June 1. The hearing of the former president’s bail plea was adjourned till May 22.
Musharraf’s counsel had earlier submitted the bail application requesting bail for his client. He had argued that a terrorism charge inserted by the Islamabad High Court did not apply in the judges’ detention case.
The police have yet to submit a complete challan in this case as the statements of judges who were detained in November 2007 under the emergency is essential for further proceedings.
The SHO of the secretariat police station had approached the Supreme Court registrar in this regard. However, the registrar did not give a positive response. “The statements of the victims are essential, otherwise the challan remains incomplete,” said a police official.
On April 20, the ATC had sent Musharraf on judicial remand for 14 days after Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the IHC had rejected his bail and ordered his arrest. Later, the Islamabad chief commissioner had declared Musharraf’s farm house a sub-jail.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 19th, 2013.
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ATC has to explain now on what ground the case was admitted earlier . Whose pressure compelled them to do so . ECP has to jusify their act to deny the fundamental rights of Musarraf . Was Musarraf a terrorist ?
" The SHO of the secretariat police station had approached the Supreme Court registrar in this regard. However, the registrar did not give a positive response. “The statements of the victims are essential, otherwise the challan remains incomplete,” said a police official."
It seems like a chess game; the affected i.e. the Judges of Supreme Court and High Court are not becoming complainants because then none of them will be able to hear any case against Musharraf – which they are currently doing in the Treason Case. Musharraf has already objected that no judge who claims to be affected by November 3rd, 2007 action can be a judge in his case. It will be really interesting to see the politics at play and how Judges will prove their independence in their decision making – the cases being heard are already controversial for singling out one person.
General Jorge Videla, an Argentina’s dictator at the height of its “Dirty War” against leftist activists, died this Friday in prison while serving time for crimes against humanity. He was 87. Videla had launched a ferocious crackdown on leftists and suspected supporters when he took power in 1976. As many as 30,000 people were kidnapped and “disappeared” by the military and suspected regime opponents were swept into secret prisons, tortured and murdered. While the same situation; kidnapping, disappearing, torturing and murdering (Bangladesh episode (1971), Lal Masjid, Akbar Bugti, bombing Swat, FATA, Balochistan and Karachi killings) has been going on in Pakistan for the last decades based on fake propaganda war on terror and writ of the government and national security BUT no one has been punished yet and even will not? All innocents or have acted in so called national interest? While the nation has been suffering and facing numerous crisis and disasters for last 65 years in the national interest? Until there is no proper code of conduct, honesty, vision, maturity and justice and power with judiciary without any influence from other institutes such situation will be persists until the suicide of the nation.