ISLAMABAD: The high court of Islamabad issued notices to the federation and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) as it took up the request for the release on bail of Senator Azam Swati in a case involving tweets critical of top army brass, including former chief retired Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, and featuring slurs.
The agency had arrested Swati on November 27, for a second time in less than two months, on charges of sending out the tweets. It last arrested the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader in the second week of October in a midnight raid at his residence in Islamabad.
His lawyer, Babar Awan, alleged at the time that Swati’s house was raided without a search warrant. “He was blindfolded and treated like a terrorist,” he had told the press.
Subsequently, on Saturday, Swati requested the high court, claiming the tweets in question, issued through his account, were in fact not posted by him.
His last request for bail was turned down by a junior judge who declared that Swati had “committed the same offence twice”.
The latest petition read the senator was “falsely implicated due to political influences of a hostile regime” and the complaints against him were registered with “malafide intention”.
Noting that Swati was earlier remanded into the agency’s custody, it said nothing “incriminating” was recovered from him and therefore he was sent to prison on judicial remand.
Later, the petition pointed out, he was abducted from the Pakistan Institute Of Medical Sciences (PIMS), where he was taken for medical treatment, in the official aircraft of the Balochistan police chief.
“However, during the course of physical remand, the honourable Balochistan High Court was pleased to quash all the FIRs [registered against him] in two petitions.” The high court had also barred the police from filing further cases against him.
“But he [Swati] was again kidnapped in other FIRs lodged against him in Sindh,” the petition said, adding later on the Singh High Court (SHC) had placed all the FIRs against him in C-class.
It contended that the entire case against Swati consisted of a “documented allegation” and that there was no “useful purpose” of keeping him in custody.
“The investigation in the case has already been completed and the petitioner is no more required for the purpose of investigation.”
The plea also pointed out that the “alleged tweets were not posted by the petitioner nor he had any intention to defame any respectable institution” and that the prosecution had no evidence against him.
Subsequently, it requested that Swati should be granted post-arrest bail till the conclusion of the trial “in the best interest of justice”.
