Judges’ detention case: Court orders copies of documents to be given to prosecutor

Hearing adjourned till October 16

ISLAMABAD: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) ordered that the prosecutor in the judges’ detention case be provided with copies of the medical report and an application seeking exemption and suspension of warrants issued for the arrest of former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf.

The ATC-II judge, Sohail Ikram, directed the judicial staff on Thursday to provide copies of the documents to Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Aamir Nadeem Tabish over the SPP’s submission that he was unable to argue before the court in the absence of the relevant documents.

During the previous hearing, the court had suspended Musharraf’s non-bailable warrants after his counsel, Muhammad Ilyas Siddiqi, moved an application to exempt him and requested that his client’s arrest warrants be withdrawn. The court had also issued a notice to the prosecutor directing him to argue over the matter.

Siddiqi, in the application, had stated that the court had issued warrants due to non-availability of a medical certificate, but now the petitioner was placing on record medical reports issued by a medical board recommending him (Musharraf) not to travel. He had prayed before the court to exempt his client from appearing before the court and withdraw his non-bailable warrants.

Earlier, the court had issued non-bailable warrants with directions to produce the suspect before the court on October 1. The court had also dismissed his exemption application as it lacked medical report.

Legal proceedings were initiated against Musharraf for detaining over 60 judges, including the former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, after the proclamation of a state of emergency in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2015.