September 07, 2008	Sunday	Ramazan 06, 1429

KARACHI, Sept 6: An additional district and sessions court reissued on Saturday non-bailable warrants for the arrest of five accused in a case pertaining to a 1999 attempt on the life of Asif Ali Zardari, now co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party.

Earlier, on Aug 8, the additional district and sessions judge VII, south, Irfan Hussain Siddiqui, had issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of former National Accountability Bureau chairman 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 and asked the IG of Sindh to arrest and produce them in court on Sept 6. However, public prosecutor Abdul Maharoof on behalf of the IG submitted a report to the court on Saturday and said the warrants could not to be served as all the accused had gone underground, and sought one month from the court for the service of the warrants. The court had strictly directed the inspector-general of Sindh to execute the warrants by Sept 11.

The court has issued non-bailable arrest warrants for the accused about six times since May 28. However, no arrests have been made so far while the police are repeatedly informing the court that two of the accused were abroad while the remaining have gone underground, which created difficulties for the police in tracing them.

The prosecution said the accused had “unlawfully” obtained the physical custody of Asif Ali Zardari from an anti-terrorism court on the night between May 15 and 16, 1999 and took him to the CIA Centre, where they subjected him to torture and forced him to record incriminating statements.

Mazar rape case

The additional district and sessions judge, Aftab Ahmed Bughio, adjourned on Saturday the hearing of a case pertaining to the gang-rape of an 18-year-old woman on the premises of Mazar-i-Quaid till Sept 20.

The defence counsel on Saturday requested the court to provide a copy of the case documents to the accused, maintaining that the copy of statements and documents of the case previously supplied to the accused under Section 265-C of CrPC was barely legible. The judge directed his staff to provide a fresh copy to the accused and summoned the prosecution witnesses, directing them to testify on next hearing.

An 18-year-old woman was kidnapped and raped on the premises of the Mazar by around five men on the night of March 15 and was found in an unstable condition outside the mausoleum on March 17.The court had on Aug 2 indicted an assistant manager for security of the mausoleum, an accountant and a personal assistant to the resident engineer of Quaid-i-Azam Management Board on the charges of kidnapping and sexually abusing the victim. However, they pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case.

The case was registered at the Brigade police station.