ISLAMABAD: The special court constituted for treason trial of former president retired General Pervez Musharraf has directed the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC) to produce on Tuesday (today) a medical certificate on his health condition. The court gave the order after Mr Musharraf did not attend Monday’s hearing.

The former military ruler was rushed to the army-run AFIC on Jan 2 after he complained of heart problems on way to the special court.

“It is a fact that he (Musharraf) is in hospital and at this stage his arrest warrants cannot be issued. The medical superintendent of the AFIC or any other official concerned is directed to produce medical certificate in this regard by 11.30am on Tuesday,” the three-judge court, headed by Justice Faisal Arab of the Sindh High Court, said in its order on Monday.

The court issued the order after the head of the prosecution team, Mohammad Akram Sheikh, alleged that the “accused (Gen Musharraf) has sought a hideout in the AFIC to escape the process of this court” and insisted that non-bailable warrants be issued for the former army chief.

In a rejoinder to three petitions filed by Gen Musharraf’s lawyers challenging the constitution of the special court, selection of its judges and appointment of the head of the prosecution team, Advocate Sheikh said that without surrendering before the court, the former president could not be represented by his counsel.

“Since the accused has failed to surrender even after two exemptions granted to him by the court have run out and no medical certificate has been produced to show a situation of disability of the accused in appearing, nobody can represent him in the court,” he argued.

The argument annoyed the defence lawyers and Ahmed Raza Kasuri termed it an attempt to malign the army. He asked Advocate Sheikh to confine himself within the parameters and said the prosecutor, on behalf of the government, was dragging the army into the matter. He also recalled that after the October 1999 coup in which the PML-N government was toppled, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif got published advertisements in The Washington Post and New York Times against the military which described it as a ‘rouge army’.

At this Justice Arab advised the counsel not to interrupt the proceedings, saying that it was a courtroom and not the floor of the assembly.

When the judge said “no cross-talk in future”, Advocate Kasuri picked up his brief case and walked out of the court.

Talking to journalists outside the courtroom, Mr Kasuri alleged that Akram Sheikh had created doubt about the army by attacking the credibility of its hospital where Gen Musharraf is under treatment.

But Mr Sheikh clarified that the army was “too sacred” to be maligned.

He said the defence lawyers in their three petitions had concealed the fact that these had been dismissed by the Islamabad High Court and an intra-court appeal they had filed against the dismissal was still pending in the IHC.

He said the federal government had finalised the names of judges for the special court after consulting then chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and the Supreme Court bench comprising the most senior judges.

Advocate Sheikh requested the court to take notice of Gen Musharraf’s repeated absence and said the accused had perpetually defied the court orders. He suggested to the court to initiate the process of issuing non-bailable arrest warrants for the former president.

PLEA DISMISSED: Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court dismissed a petition seeking an order to stop Gen Musharraf from going abroad. The petition, filed by chairman of the Shuhada Foundation Trust of Lal Masjid, Advocate Tariq Asad, said the former president was an accused in several cases, including the killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti as well as the judges’ detention in 2007.

“Gen Musharraf faces a series of major criminal cases and must be barred from leaving the country,” it added.

The petition claimed that the former army chief had pretended to have suffered a heart problem to escape appearance before the special court. “His legal team is now seeking permission for sending him abroad for medical treatment. If Gen Musharraf is allowed to leave the country it will not be possible to bring him back,” it said.

In his order, Justice Siddiqui observed that the petitioner might approach the trial courts where the cases against Gen Musharraf were being heard.

The former military chief is facing the Benazir murder case in Rawalpindi’s anti-terrorism court, judges’ detention case in Islamabad’s ATC and Akbar Bugti murder case in Quetta’s ATC. The fourth case against Gen Musharraf relating to the murder of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi is pending before an additional district and sessions judge of Islamabad.