Case quashment: Zardari’s plea disposed off

LAHORE: A division bench of Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday disposed of a petition moved by former president Asif Ali Zardari seeking quashment of a drug case lodged against him in 1998. On Monday, Zardari’s counsel Barrister Chaudhry Aitezaz Ahsan withdrew the petition because the trial court had already acquitted the former president of the charges. Qila Gujjar Singh police had registered the case against Zardari on September 23, 1998 when he was in Karachi Jail. Arif Baloch and Shorang Khan, who were then in police custody, had claimed that Zardari provided them drugs to smuggle abroad. Zardari had approached the LHC for quashment of the case and the petition had been pending hearing since May 19, 2008, when a judge acquitted him.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2015.