KARACHI: Zardari’s plea in attempted murder case adjourned
KARACHI, June 24: Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari’s appeal against a sessions court order absolving former Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz senator and accountability chief Saifur Rehman Khan, his brother Mujibur Rehman Khan, five police officers and a jail superintendent of an attempt to murder him in May 1999, was on Tuesday adjourned by Justice Khalid Ali Z. Qazi of the Sindh High Court.
Mr Zardari submitted in the revision application that (the then) police inspector-general Rana Maqbool Ahmed Khan and deputy inspector-general Farooq Amin Qureshi obtained his physical remand for a night from an anti-terrorism court trying him. In complicity with Central Prison superintendent Najaf Mirza, they took him from the prison to the CIA Centre at Saddar and tortured him in order to extract a confessional statement from him to incriminate him and his wife, ousted prime minister Benazir Bhutto, at the behest of PML-N senator Saifur Rehman Khan, who was heading the ehtesaab (accountability) cell of the second Nawaz Sharif government.
When he refused to make an incriminatory statement, they slashed his tongue and made him bleed profusely. However, his complaint was not registered by the police, which claimed that he injured himself in an attempt to commit suicide.
A case was finally registered years later when Malir district and session judge Salman Ansari conducted an inquiry into the incident on a high court order. The judge concluded that the injury could not have been self-inflicted. A judicial magistrate sent the case up for trial but a sessions court of District South acquitted all the accused on a police report under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for lack of evidence.
Mr Zardari moved a criminal revision application against the sessions court order, saying that only a judicial magistrate had the authority to exonerate the accused under Section 173 of the CrPC. The sessions court could have acquitted them under Section 265-K of the CrPC for lack of evidence. The sessions court acted in violation of the law and the order be set aside to facilitate a trial.
Assistant Advocate-General Agha Zafeer appeared for the state on Tuesday and informed Justice Qazi that a fresh charge-sheet against the accused had already been submitted in the case. Advocate Adnan Karim, appearing for the applicant, submitted that the prosecution be asked to furnish him a copy of the fresh charge-sheet. He requested the court to adjourn the hearing. Allowing the request, the court put off the hearing to a date to be fixed by the office.
Notice to interior ministry
A division bench comprising Justices Yasmin Abbasy and Justice Bin Yamin, meanwhile, issued notices to the interior ministry, the Federal Investigation Agency and FIA director-general, ‘blacklist’ cell of the FIA immigration and passports wing for July 4.
Petitioner Syed Samiullah Qadri submitted through advocates Rasheed A. Razvi and Haider Imam Rizvi that he had been working as a civil engineer at Muscat, Oman, for about a decade. There was no case or inquiry against him in either country. However, when he came on a visit to Pakistan on March 10, he was detained at the airport and his passport was seized. He was not informed of the grounds of his detention nor of reasons behind the seizure of his passport.
On his release he made several representations to the FIA and the interior ministry but failed to elicit any response. He was told that his passport had been ‘blacklisted’ by the FIA cell set up for the purpose. He alleged that the action was taken at the behest of former federal secretary Iqbal Junejo, whose daughter is locked in a court battle with his son for the custody of their child. Mr Junejo was cited as a respondent and a notice was also issued to him.
The petitioner said the FIA action was arbitrary, punitive and discriminatory and violative of his fundamental rights guaranteed by constitutional provisions, including Articles 2-A, 4, 9, and 15.