LAHORE: A Lahore High Court division bench on Wednesday took up a 17-year-old writ petition of former president Asif Ali Zardari seeking quashment of a drug case wherein he had already been acquitted.

However, the bench comprising Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Mirza Viqas Rauf adjourned the hearing of the petition due to unavailability of Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, counsel for Zardari.

An associate of Barrister Ahsan told the bench that the counsel was busy before the Supreme Court in Islamabad. He sought a short adjournment in the case and the bench put off the hearing till May 11.

The petition of Zardari’s co-suspect Arif Baloch was also fixed before the bench. He was also acquitted of charges.

Both petitions filed in 1998 had been given a red-tag of “oldest cases” by the high court registrar office. Chief Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik had been issuing strict directions for disposal of the oldest cases since he took oath last month.

During the second stint of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1998, Qila Gujjar Singh police of Lahore had registered a drug case against Asif Ali Zardari when he was already in police custody for involvement in other cases. The police had arrested Arif Baloch who had given a ‘confessional statement’ statement that Zardari used to provide him and others drugs for sale. Another co-suspect in the case, Showrang Khan, had died in 2005.

After the PPP formed its government in 2008, a sessions court acquitted Mr Zardari and Arif Baloch observing that the prosecution had failed to establish its case.

This was the last case against the husband of former slain premier Benazir Bhutto as the rest of the cases were already dismissed or withdrawn under ‘political amnesty’ given to politicians by then president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf under the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2015

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