Islamabad: Pakistan`s Supreme Court is likely to take up only next week petitions challenging the release of JuD chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, mastermind of 26/11 attacks, from house arrest as it is now focussing on a case related to former President Pervez Musharraf`s imposition of emergency in 2007.
The Federal and Punjab governments had on July 16
asked the apex court to defer the hearing of their petitions
challenging Saeed`s release from house arrest for two weeks.
This plea was accepted by the court though the date for the
next hearing was not set at that time.
Though the two weeks` time has expired, the petitions
were not taken up by the apex court today.
Sources said the matter was unlikely to come up
tomorrow either as the court is focussed on a case related to
the appointment of judges that has sparked a debate about
Musharraf`s decision to impose emergency in November 2007 and
to sack over 60 members of the superior judiciary.
The sources also said the petitions challenging
release of Saeed, who India suspects is the mastermind of the
Mumbai attacks, on the orders of the Lahore High Court might
be taken up by the apex court next week.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry heads the two benches
that are hearing the case related to Musharraf`s actions
during the emergency and the petitions challenging Saeed`s
release from house arrest.
Saeed, also the founder of the outlawed
Lashker-e-Taiba that carried out the Mumbai attacks, was
detained shortly after the UN Security Council declared JuD a
terrorist organisation in December last year. He was freed on
the orders of the Lahore High Court on June 2.
India has been asking Pakistan to prosecute Saeed and
other suspects of the Mumbai terror attacks, while Islamabad
has been maintaining that it does not have enough evidence
against the JuD chief.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik recently ruled out the
possibility of Saeed being arrested for alleged involvement in
the Mumbai attacks, saying there was no evidence against him.
Attorney General Latif Khosa has said Saeed cannot be
prosecuted by Pakistani authorities for the same reason.
Bureau Report
