KARACHI, Nov 18: An additional district and sessions judge, south, summoned on Tuesday the owner of a courier company and a courier to appear in court and depose on Nov 28 regarding the delivery of the court’s orders to the interior ministry in a case pertaining to an attempt on the life of Asif Ali Zardari, now the president of Pakistan and co-chairman of the PPP.

Former chairman of the National Accountability Bureau Saifur Rehman Khan, his brother Mujibur Rehman Khan, former inspector-general of police Rana Maqbool, former deputy inspector-general of police Farooq Amin Qureshi and former superintendent of the central prison Najaf Mirza were facing charges of obtaining a physical custody of Asif Ali Zardari apparently in an illegal manner from an anti-terrorism court on the night between May 15 and 16, 1999.

They allegedly took him to the CIA Centre, where they allegedly tortured and forced him to record incriminatory statements.

The court had declared all the accused proclaimed offenders and on Sept 30, the judge had directed the federal interior ministry to issue red warrants for the arrest of four accused residing abroad and to execute the warrants through the Interpol and submit the compliance reporter to the court.

However, the interior ministry’s compliance report could not be submitted and the court on the request of public prosecutor on the pervious hearing (Nov 8) asked a courier company to submit confirmation report regarding delivery of the court’s order.

The courier company submitted a report in court when the case came up for hearing on Tuesday, stating that the court’s orders were delivered to the interior ministry on Oct 14.

However, public prosecutor Abdul Maharoof argued that it was an insufficient report as it did not mention the name of the person who received these orders and requested the court to summon the owner of the company along with the courier who delivered the court’s order.

Judge Nizar Ali Khawaja, who is conducting the trial, summoned them to testify on the next hearing and extended the interim pre-arrest bail of Najaf Mirza till Nov 28, directing his counsel to record final arguments on the bail application on the next hearing.

The court had granted an interim pre-arrest bail to the accused against the surety bond of Rs200,000 on Nov 17.

Meanwhile, the prosecution on the court’s directive has supplied the copy of statements and documents of the case to Najaf Mirza under Section 265-C of the criminal procedure code.