RAWALPINDI, June 25: An additional sessions judge here dismissed on Monday a petition seeking quashment of arrest warrants for Ali Musa Gilani, son of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, issued by a trial court of the Anti-Narcotics Force in the ephedrine case.

The judge asked Musa Gilani’s counsel Faisal Hussain who had filed the petition to approach the Lahore High Court because it was a proper forum to take such decision.

Special judge (narcotics) Shafqatullah Khan had on June 21 issued the non-bailable arrest warrants for Musa Gilani and Makhdoom Shahabuddin, the first choice of the PPP for the office of prime minister, on an ANF application seeking their custody to investigate the sale of 9,000kgs of ephedrine to smugglers by two pharmaceutical companies — Berlex Lab International and Danas Pharmaceutical (Pvt) Ltd.

Advocate Faisal told Additional Sessions Judge Mohammad Kaleem Khan that the ANF judge had issued the arrest warrants in a mechanical manner. He said the ANF did not produce any tangible evidence against Musa Gilani and relied on statements of witnesses which had been recorded in violation of set parameters of the code of criminal procedure.