Court to hear Pakistani minister’s exemption plea March 1

RAWALPINDI - Stating that it was yet to receive the complete documents, an anti-corruption court here Tuesday again put off a hearing on Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s plea for exemption from personal appearance in two cases against him.

After Malik appeared in the Accountability Court and repeated his plea, judge Mohammad Tariq Abbasi ruled that the papers relating to the two cases were still with the Lahore High Court and that he would take up the issue March 1.

The ruling came after Malik’s counsel Amjad Iqbal Qureshi contended that due to security concerns it was inappropriate for the interior minister to come to the court therefore he be exempted from doing so, Online news agency reported.

He told the court that he, on behalf of Malik, had also filed an acquittal plea but Abbasi said he could not pass an order without receiving the papers from the Lahore High Court.

On Jan 12, Abbasi had adjourned the hearing on Malik’s plea to Feb 2, citing non-receipt of the papers from the Lahore High Court.

The two cases, in which Malik is charged with misappropriation, had been referred to the Accountability Court by corruption watchdog National Accountability Bureau (NAB). They date back to 2004 and Malik had obtained bail in both cases.

The cases collapsed after then president Pervez Musharraf promulgated the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) in October 2007 granting immunity from corruption charges to slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband Zardari, as also some 250 politicians and bureaucrats, and had enabled them return home from exile.

However, the cases against Malik and all those who had benefited from the NRO were revived after a 17-member Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry ruled Dec 16 that the decree was illegal and against the constitution.

This ruling is now hanging over the heads of Zardari, as also over Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, former principal secretary to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and presently Executive Director of the Asian Development Bank Siraj Shamsuddin and former Intelligence Bureau chief Brigadier (retd) Imtiaz, among others.

Zardari, on his part, has said he was willing to face the courts if it was ruled that he did not enjoy presidential immunity.