ISLAMABAD: The special court issued on Friday arrest warrants for former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf in the high treason case. The court also dismissed his application seeking cardiac treatment in the United States.

Perhaps the defence lawyers were expecting such an order and that was why they changed the strategy. Instead of senior counsel Sharifuddin Pirzada, the arguments were advanced by Anwar Mansoor Khan.

Mohammad Akram Sheikh, head of the prosecution team, raised objection and contended that the defence team had earlier nominated Mr Pirzada to advance the arguments.

But the three-judge special court, headed by Justice Faisal Arab of the Sindh High Court, overruled the objection and said selection of lawyers was a right of the defence team.

The court reserved the judgement at about 11am and before rising, Justice Arab said it would be announced during the course of the day. The lawyers of both sides, as well as journalists covering the case, were expecting the decision by 1pm, but they had to wait till 5pm. A verdict is usually issued by 3pm.

After going through the medical report of Gen Musharraf, submitted by a board comprising doctors of the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC), the court observed in its order: “No reasonable excuse has been offered to justify failure of the accused (Gen Musharraf) to appear before this court. Therefore, there is no alternative except to issue bailable warrants of arrest for the accused subject to executing a bond in a sum of Rs2,500,000 with surety of like amount. The warrant shall be sent to the inspector general of police, Islamabad, to get it served and submit its compliance report on the date fixed for hearing of the case.”

The case will be taken up on Feb 7.

The order held that the report, prepared by a four-doctor committee headed by AFIC Commandant Maj Gen Syed Mohammad Imran Majeed, was valid and that being a leading health treatment facility in the country Gen Musharraf could get his coronary angiography done there.

“The accused has been in the hospital for a month now but so far he has not undergone coronary angiography at AFIC. The hospital itself claims that it has a state of the art tertiary cardiac care facility with highly qualified heart specialists and is also ISO certified… if at all the accused is suffering from any heart ailment, we have not imposed any restriction whatsoever on his getting medical treatment, nor does he require our permission to undergo suggested coronary angiography as he is not in prison,” the order said.

The court also clarified that seeking treatment abroad was a desire of the former army chief and it was not recommended by the AFIC medical board. “The accused has filed an application wherein, apart from seeking his exemption from appearance, it also sought further relief of allowing him to proceed abroad for his treatment at a medical facility and doctors of his choice in the United Sates. The said prayer, on the face of it, is not maintainable.”

The court said the reason for rejecting his plea of getting treatment in the US was that Gen Musharraf’s name was on the exit control list and the court lacked jurisdiction to grant him such relief.

The court rejected the prosecution’s objections to the medical report as well as a plea by Akram Sheikh to summon the AFIC commandant and said: “We have neither found anything inappropriate in the medical report dated Jan 24, 2014, and, therefore need not to address the objections raised by the prosecution. We have taken the report submitted by the medical board on its face value without doubting the calibre and integrity of the doctors concerned.”

The court said the AFIC medical board in its report “does not suggest that the accused in his present state of health is to remain confined to bed, and is not allowed any movement of a nature that he is prevented from appearing before this court”.

“From the substance of the report it becomes apparent that in the absence of any such restriction imposed by the doctors, no reasonable excuse exists to justify the failure of the accused to appear before this court. The doctors in their medical report have not found it appropriate to impose any restriction on his (Musharraf’s) movement. This by itself implies that no such advice was given to the accused,” the order said.