LAHORE, March 15: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday formally commenced trial of Dr Ahmad Javed Khwaja and his brother at Kot Lakhpat jail after the prosecution furnished the case copies with the accused.

The court fixed March 25 for the indictment of Dr Ahmad Javed Khwaja and Ahmad Naveed Khwaja, and summoned all the prosecution witnesses for the next hearing. The court announced that it would examine the prosecution evidence the same day after framing charges against the accused.

Earlier, prosecutor Rana Bakhtiar provided the case copies to the accused under section 265-C CrPc. The documents include photocopies of four foreign nationals’ passports, chargesheet prepared under 173 CrPc, a copy of complaint initially received by SHO Farooq Asghar, a copy of FIR, inspection notes prepared by the investigating officer, the report of forensic expert on the empties allegedly recovered from outside the accused’s residence and written statements of eight prosecution witnesses.

All the eight prosecution witnesses cited in the case copies are police officials — Khalid Javed, Muhammad Ayub, Muhammad Ashraf, Ashfaq Ahmad, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Alam, Muhammad Latif and Wilayat Ali.

The copies of four foreigners’ passports have been placed on the judicial record following an observation made by the court on the last hearing that incriminating evidence against the two accused regarding their alleged links with Al Qaeda activists had not been brought on record.

In the chargesheet provided to them, both the Khwajas have been accused under section 324 CrPc (opening indiscriminate fire on police party), section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, (indulging in terrorist activities), and section 11 (V) of ATA, (harbouring Al Qaeda activists).

Briefly, the charge-sheet narrated that SHO Farooq Asghar received a wireless message that the two accused had opened an indiscriminate fire on police outside their residence in Manawan area on December 19, 2002. Later, both the accused were arrested and a pistol and a kalashnikov were recovered from them. Passports of some foreign nationals and Afghani and the US currency were also allegedly found in their residence.

The court also directed defence counsel Pervez Inayat Malik to provide it a copy of the Lahore High Court’s judgment pronounced on a petition of the accused, challenging their trial in jail. The court sought a copy of this judgment to confirm whether the LHC had given any observation in its verdict to the effect that the trial court had the prerogative of holding an in-camera proceedings, and did not need any direction from the LHC in this regard.

An application of the defence counsel pleading the court to allow the general public and journalists to the cover the trial proceedings is pending with the trial court. The court observed that this application would be decided after going through the LHC’s judgment.

The LHC had dismissed Khwajas’ petition, saying the trial court and the provincial home department were authorized to hold their trial in jail for security. It also refused to direct the court to hold an open trial on jail premises.

The four members of the accused family were present during the proceedings.