ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Saturday challenged the Sindh High Court's ruling which had struck down its order of preventing retired General Pervez Musharraf from leaving the country.

Attorney General Pakistan Salman Aslam Butt filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the ruling of the high court which ordered the removal of Musharraf's name from the exit control list.

The appeal requests the court to not allow the removal of Musharraf's name from the list and continue travel restrictions on the former military ruler.

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The attorney general has contended that the federal government could not take the risk of allowing the former president to leave the country because there was a great incentive for him to flee in view of a treason case that involved the death penalty.

The high court which had struck down the travel restrictions on Musharraf on Thursday had said at the time that the ex-army strongman will have to wait for two weeks to find out if he could actually travel abroad.

The court had suspended the operation of its judgment for 15 days enabling the federation to file an appeal in the Supreme Court.

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Moreover on Friday, the special court trying Musharraf for treason rejected his plea to seek details of the over 1,000 ‘abettors’ who had met him before the imposition of Nov 3, 2007 emergency.

However, the court left the door open for the retired general to file such an application in the future when Justice Faisal Arab called the current petition “premature”.