May 28, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25,1424

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ISLAMABAD, May 27: An accountability court on Tuesday rejected the application of Asif Ali Zardari, challenging his prosecution in the SGS reference, on the principle of double jeopardy and asked the prosecution to produce witnesses to record evidence on June 3.

Accountability judge Mansoor Ali Khan had fixed May 27 for the announcement of the order against the application which had been filed under article 13 of the Constitution.

Talking to newsmen after the order, Mr Zardari said he would continue fighting for his legal rights till the time he got justice.

He said he intended to file another application under different articles of the Constitution and in case his plea was again dismissed, he would knock the door of the superior judiciary.

The defence has pleaded that he could not be tried twice in the SGS reference on the same grounds under which he had already completed substantial sentence.

The application stated that Mr Zardari was arrested in May 1998 under the SGS case while the Ehtesab bench of the Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi bench, convicted him on April 15, 1999.

An appeal was then filed before the Supreme Court which set aside the conviction on April 6, 2001.

The defence team, comprising Senator Farooq Naek, Arshad Tabriz, Abu Bakar Zardari, had argued before the court that the Ehtesab court had convicted their client for five years with a fine of $8.1 million, while Mr Zardari had already completed sentence in Dec 2001 by earning remissions and spending two years in jail.

The defence had also recalled that the superintendent of the Central Prison Karachi had also written a letter to the then IG (prisons), Sindh, seeking his direction for the release of Mr Zardari, saying that the accused had already completed his substantial sentence in Dec 2001. As far as the fine was concerned, Mr Zardari had not paid it.

Farooq Naek had cited section 48 of the prison rules to establish that prisoners were bound to be released on the expiry of their substantial conviction if the fine was not paid, provided the order of the court did not mention any imprisonment in lieu of the fine.

He had stated that the Ehtesab court had not ordered any imprisonment in lieu of fine. Even otherwise under section 65 of the PPC, the court could not award sentence in lieu of non- payment of fine more than one third of the substantive sentence.

He said Mr Zardari had already served up the sentence of imprisonment more than five years and, therefore, was entitled to be released. On the other hand, prosecutor Azmat Saeed had argued that since there was no conviction against Mr Zardari pursuant to the order of the Supreme Court, therefore, Mr Zardari was liable to be prosecuted.

Mr Zardari is facing charges of awarding pre-shipment inspection contract to Messers SGS in consideration of 6 per cent commission of total amount received by the company from the government of Pakistan.