Former Pakistan president General (Retd.) Pervez Musharraf has filed an application in an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Islamabad seeking "foolproof security" in order to be able to return to the country and appear in court in the judges' detention case.
Accepting Musharraf's application, filed by the retired general's counsel Akhtar Shah, ATC-II judge Sohail Ikram ordered the Inspector General of Police and the Interior Ministry Secretary to make security arrangements to ensure his presence in court on the next hearing on February 9, reports the Dawn.
The application had asked the court to direct authorities to provide extraordinary security to the ex-president in view of "serious security threats".
Until such security measures have been taken, the application said, Musharraf should be exempted from appearing in the court.
At the last hearing of the judges' detention case in December, the ATC gave a one-month deadline to Musharraf to surrender.
The court had warned at the time that the former military ruler would be declared a proclaimed offender if he failed to comply with the deadline.
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The judges' detention case against Musharraf was registered by the Secretariat police on August 11, 2009, on the complaint of Advocate Chaudhry Mohammad Aslam for confining 60 judges of the superior courts for over five months and restraining them from administering justice.
The judges, including former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, were detained after the proclamation of an emergency in the country.
He is also an accused in murder cases of Benazir Bhutto, Nawab Akbar Bugti and Ghazi Abdul Rasheed.