20000119

Plane case

Decision on framing

formal charges today

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Anti-Terrorism Court Judge Rehmat Hussain Jaffri said on Tuesday that he would decide on January 19 whether formal charges against the accused could be framed in the October 12 plane conspiracy case at the present stage of proceedings.

Before making this announcement, Jaffri adjourned the proceedings, while heated arguments between the prosecution and the defence counsel were still going on. The judge said that he would announce his decision on the prosecution's plea for framing formal charges against the accused by 2 p.m. "I will try to announce a decision by 2 p.m.," said Jaffri and retired to his chamber.

Later, after 2 p.m., he adjourned the hearing to Wednesday saying that the decision on framing charges would also be announced "tomorrow."

The prosecution has not so far provided spools of recording maintained by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) pertaining to October 12 PIA Colombo-Karachi flight PK-805, carrying the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and Chief of the Army Staff Gen. Pervez Musharraf and other 198 passengers from Sri Lanka to Pakistan, to the defence counsels.

The accused in the case are deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his brother and former chief minister of the Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, former adviser to prime minister on Sindh affairs, Syed Ghous Ali Shah, former Ehtesab Bureau chief, Saifur Rehman, former PIA Chief, Khaqan Abbasi, former principal secretary to prime minister, Saeed Mehdi, and former IGP Sindh Rana Maqbool Ahmed. The eighth accused former director general of CAA Chaudhry Aminullah has turned approver in the case.

When the hearing resumed in the morning at about 10 a.m. on Tuesday the defence counsel said that the prosecution had not provided them with the copies of the spools as was decided on Monday.

The defence said that out of eight hours recordings, only three hours recordings had been completed. However, that too had not been supplied to us, the defence counsel added. That they maintained that under Section 265 Cr.PC, the prosecution was bound to supply complete material before proceeding with the case any further.

The prosecution said that material recorded under section 161 Cr.PC and section 164 Cr. PC had already been supplied to the defence and that was enough for the court to proceed further. The Advocate General of Sindh, Raja Qureshi, told the court that copying of the tapes would take time and that laying of charges did not have to wait until all the evidence was handed over.

The defence counsel argued that the tapes were important to them. Khawaja Sultan, Sharifs' lawyer said, "The only evidence the prosecution has to use to connect (the accused with the hijacking) are the conversations on tapes."

Arguments and counter arguments by the defence and the prosecution over tapes were heated at times and led to a brief adjournment of the case when Judge Jaffri said that he would announce the decision on the framing of charges at about 2 p.m.

Iqbal Raad, one of the defence counsel, told Business Recorder that Section 265 Cr.PC has explicit advantages for the accused and that requires supply of complete material to the defence to prepare its case. "The prosecution is trying to deny that legal right to the accused."

"The spools have material on which the prosecution has based its case and we would like to know its exact contents," Raad said, and added that the accused should have access to all the material on record.

The accused are likely to be shifted from Landhi Jail to some nearby rest house to facilitate their daily transportation to the new premises of the ATC.