KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Karachi has acquitted Ali Wazir, an MP and a co-founder of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), and 12 other suspects of terrorism charges.
According to Salahuddin Gandapur, the counsel for Wazir, the parliamentarian was arrested from Peshawar in December 2020 on charges of hate speech and criminal conspiracy and has since spent been in prison.
He further said the case was registered in the Sohrab Goth police station of Karachi.
The charges against Wazir pertain to incendiary speeches against state institutions at a public meeting in Karachi in 2018. He was arrested at the request of the Sindh police, a team of which travelled to Peshawar to take him into custody and bring him back to Karachi.
Gandapur previously recalled the Supreme Court had granted him bail in the case registered at the Sohrab Goth police station but the MP was shown arrested in another identical case registered at the Shah Latif Town police station.
Several other PTM leaders, including Mohsin Dawar, also an MP, were also charged with the same offences but not detained.
