ISLAMABAD: At a time when former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf is desperately trying to drag several civilian and military officials into his high treason trial, the government has sent on training a senior officer of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) who had opposed his solo trial.

Hussain Asghar was working on the key post of Administration Director.

He was in a four-member FIA team which conducted investigation against Gen Musharraf for imposing emergency on Nov 3, 2007.

According to the FIA sources, Mr Asghar had opposed trying Gen Musharraf as the only accused and recommended implicating some politicians and bureaucrats in the high treason case.

In 2012, when Mr Asghar was investigating a Haj corruption case, he was made inspector general of Gilgit-Baltistan police by the then government. His sudden posting annoyed the Supreme Court and finally the government brought him back to the FIA.

In January, the government appointed Sardar Zaheer as the FIA Administration Director while Mr Asghar was on ‘long leave’.

Mr Zaheer retired last month and the charge of the post was assigned to Mohsin Butt since Mr Asghar had been selected for a course in the National Institute of Public Administration.

The interior ministry’s spokesman, Danial Gillani, said the official had on his own joined the training course, which was mandatory for his promotion.

An official of the ministry said Hussain Asghar had recommended implicating some politicians and bureaucrats as well in order to equally distribute the responsibility of subverting the Constitution.

He was of the view that Gen Musharraf represented the army when he proclaimed emergency, the sources said.

According to the proclamation, the emergency was imposed after a meeting which was attended by the then “prime minister, governors of all the four provinces and with the chairman, joint chiefs of staff committee, chiefs of the armed forces, vice chief of army staff and corps commanders of the Pakistan Army”.

Those mentioned in the proclamation should have been named as co-accused or abettors in the complaint filed by the government before the special court, but they had been spared to avoid opening a Pandora’s box, the ministry official said.

Even the federal secretaries who endorsed and executed the illegal orders of the military ruler have not been implicated in the case.

The official said that Mohsin Hafeez, former secretary to the president; Khalid Saeed, former principal secretary to prime minister; Masud Alam Rizvi, former cabinet secretary; Syed Kamal Shah, former interior secretary; and Hamid Ali Khan, former chief commissioner of Islamabad could be named as co-accused for helping the then military ruler in imposing the emergency.

The evidence against Gen Musharraf includes a copy of “endorsement of proclamation signed by the then cabinet secretary Syed Masud Alam Rizvi”.

The special court ruled on Friday that “the involvement of any other person would depend on the evidence which would come on the record”.

Advocate Faisal Hussain, one of the lawyers representing Gen Musharraf, said a number of documents submitted by the prosecution mentioned names of the abettors.

“The prosecution has not produced before the court the investigation report of the four members’ team of the FIA which probed high treason charges against Musharraf despite the fact that the three-member bench desired to examine the report,” he said.

“At this crucial time when the special court is about to try a former army chief for high treason, sudden posting of an upright officer who was reportedly against singling out Musharraf is beyond my understanding,” he added.

Akram Sheikh, head of the prosecution team, said it was the prerogative of the government to implicate an individual or set of characters in the case.