Islamabad: A special court trying former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf for treason passed an order Tuesday freezing his bank accounts and confiscating his property, his lawyer said.
The head of a three-judge panel, Mazhar Alam Miankhel, made the order in the absence of the former president, who left for Dubai in March for what was described as urgent medical treatment.
The order came after authorities gave the court documentation on Musharraf`s property. He faces multiple charges including treason and murder over the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
"The court ordered freezing of the former president`s bank accounts and attachment of his property to the respective session courts all over the country," Musharraf`s lead counsel Ahmad Raza Kasuri told AFP.
The court adjourned indefinitely after passing the order, which means the case is closed unless the former president returns to Pakistan.
Musharraf ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup in 1999. He resigned in 2008 to avoid possible impeachment and went into exile overseas.
He returned in 2013 in an attempt to contest elections but was barred from taking part in the polls and from leaving the country while facing a barrage of legal cases.
The travel ban was lifted in March.
In January this year Musharraf was acquitted over the 2006 killing of a Baloch rebel leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti.
But four cases against him remain -- one accusing him of treason for imposing emergency rule, as well as those alleging the unlawful dismissal of judges, the assassination of opposition leader Bhutto and a deadly raid on Islamabad`s radical Red Mosque.
