ISLAMABAD: The Special Court sought on Wednesday a briefing from the intelligence agency which had issued a threat alert hours before the indictment of former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf in the high treason case.

The three-judge court headed by Justice Faisal Arab of the Sindh High Court directed an official of the interior ministry to arrange the briefing.

The court had summoned Gen Musharraf on Tuesday for the indictment but had to defer it for March 14 because of the security alert.

Sources in the interior ministry told Dawn that the court’s order had been conveyed to the defence secretary. They said the alert had been issued by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to the interior ministry which forwarded it to the quarters concerned.

The sources said that in its alert issued twice on Monday, the ISI warned that Gen Musharraf might be attacked by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The agency also conveyed to the interior ministry that terrorists had penetrated the security/cavalcade of Gen Musharraf and might assassinate him en route to or inside/outside the court, similar to the incident of Salman Taseer.

Former Punjab governor Taseer was shot dead by his own gunman in Islamabad’s Kohsar market in January 2011.

On Tuesday, Gen Musharraf’s counsel used the security alert to justify his absence from the court.

On Wednesday, Justice Faisal Arab observed that the court was taking the matter very seriously and, therefore, it wanted to check authenticity of the alert by the quarters concerned.

Dr Tariq Hassan, senior public prosecutor, said the prosecutors were also concerned at the security-related issue, but argued that the court had already made it clear that the administration of justice could not be stopped because of fears of attack.

Sharifuddin Pirzada, counsel for Gen Musharraf, insisted that the court should take the matter very carefully and seriously and requested it to defer the indictment of Gen Musharraf till March 17.

On Wednesday, security personnel deployed outside the court stopped Rana Ijaz, a lawyer of Gen Musharraf, from entering the courtroom. He was told that the instruction was issued by the court’s registrar Abdul Ghani Soomor. On Tuesday, Rana Ijaz demanded registration of a case as he attributed a threatening message to Justice Arab.

The court had ordered that Rana Ijaz “be physically removed from the court”. It cancelled his entrance pass and referred the matter to the Pakistan and Punjab Bar Councils for taking disciplinary action against him.