ISLAMABAD: The special court seized with a high treason case against retired General Pervez Musharraf has deferred his trial till next week after the recently appointed defence counsel sought time to meet the former military dictator and prepare his arguments.

The three-judge court, headed by Justice Yawar Ali, was scheduled to resume day-to-day proceedings on Tuesday in the high treason case, but it had to defer the matter till Oct 15 after Barrister Salman Safdar informed the court that Gen Musharraf had recently engaged him as defence counsel.

The counsel requested the court to adjourn the proceedings till next week as he needed time to prepare arguments. “I need a detailed meeting with my client and also want to prepare a list of defence witnesses,” he said.

He claimed that the defence side might produce hundreds of witnesses to substantiate the claim that the former army chief was not alone in imposition of a state of emergency in Pakistan on Nov 3, 2007.

Prosecutor Naseerudin Nayyer argued that since Gen Musharraf was an absconder, he could not be represented through a counsel. Gen Musharraf should surrender before the court as the government was ready to provide him foolproof security, he argued, adding that the prosecution laid entire evidence against him and it was his turn to record his statement under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Barrister Safdar, however, argued that this was not the matter of security of the ex-president. In fact, he added, Gen Musharraf was facing ‘serious health problems’.

Regarding the videos of the ex-dictator partying, the defence counsel said that the videos were old. They were made when the former president had not been suffering from ailment.

The bench then asked the prosecution if the court should record testimony of the ex-army chief through a video link.

The prosecutor agreed and said if the former military dictator could not appear in person before the court, he could record his statement through Skype.

The defence counsel, however, insisted that he needed time to prepare his arguments as he had been engaged only recently.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2018