In a day of high drama, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf fled from the Islamabad High Court on Thursday after it had ordered his arrest in a 2007 case and remained closeted in his farmhouse with police blocking access to it.
The Islamabad High Court dismissed Musharraf’s interim bail extension plea and ordered his arrest in the case related to the detention of senior judges. Resentment toward the former Army Chief still runs deep in the judiciary, which was at the center of the protest movement that led to his ouster in 2008.
Accompanied by his guards, Musharraf, 69, appeared before the court to seek an extension of his bail. However, the court dismissed his plea and ordered his arrest. The former military dictator lost no time in fleeing from the court premises in a black, bulletproof SUV with tinted glasses.
Escorted by his bodyguards, Musharraf zoomed out of the court premises as security personnel looked on and TV cameras whirred away.
The former Army Chief who had returned to Pakistan last month after four years of self-imposed exile, later reached his farmhouse in Chak Shahzad on the outskirts of Islamabad, where he is expected to be arrested, police said.
Police promptly took up guard outside Musharraf’s farmhouse and blocked the way. As the drama unfolded, Musharraf’s lawyers went to the Supreme Court to file a pre-arrest bail application so that he does not have surrender to the police.
However, the apex court returned the 14-page bail application as the Registrar’s office had closed. The court demanded to know why the police had failed to arrest Musharraf as he left the court.
His lawyers are now likely to submit the application on Friday. There is widespread speculation that the Supreme Court could declare Musharraf’s farmhouse “sub-jail,” and place him under house arrest there.
Musharraf’s spokesperson Reza Bukhari told journalists that he was “under protection from the Pakistani Government”. Musharraf, he said, would follow all the rules of law and had not fled the court. He was escorted by the Pakistani security establishment, Bukhari said, adding that the court had not acted with wisdom.
“I have spoken to him since he returned from the court. He will pursue the legal channel in front of him. There is an appeal process...,” Bukhari was quoted as saying.
Officials in Musharraf’s political party denied that the former ruler was in any way a fugitive. “No attempt was made to arrest Musharraf,” Muhammad Amjad Chaudhry, the senior party leader, said. “No police officer asked him to surrender after the court order was passed. Musharraf returned to his residence from the court. He is not in hiding.”
A spokesman for Musharraf’s party described the court order as “seemingly motivated by personal vendettas,” and hinted at the possibility of a looming clash with the military, warning that it could “result in unnecessary tension among the various pillars of State and possibly destabilize the country.” In the previous hearing, the High Court had extended Musharraf’s interim bail till April 18.
The case was based on an FIR against the retired General registered in August 11, 2009 on the complaint of Chaudhry Mohammad Aslam Ghumman, an advocate.
He had asked the police to initiate legal proceedings against Musharraf for detaining over 60 judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, after proclamation of a state of emergency in the country on November 3, 2007. Xinhua recalled that the judges had refused to take oath under a provisional constitutional order initiated by Musharraf.
Musharraf faces other legal cases, including treason charges for imposing emergency rule, the 2007 assassination of late premier Benazir Bhutto and the killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006.