KARACHI - A Pakistan court dismissed Tuesday a request from former premier Benazir Bhutto for pre-arrest bail ahead of her return from self-imposed exiled next week, her lawyer said. The High Court in Karachi rejected the petition after government lawyers ruled out the possibility that she would be arrested on arrival in the southern port city next Thursday.Bhutto had sought protective bail in case she was seized over corruption charges that she says are politically motivated and forced her to flee Pakistan into exile in 1999. Bhutto, the first female leader of an Islamic nation, plans to return on October 18 to contest parliamentary elections due by January.
‘Chief justice of the Sindh High Court, Sabihuddin Ahmed, and judge Faisal Arab who presided in the court disposed of the petition after the government prosecutor said they would not pursue the cases,’ Bhutto’s lawyer Farooq Naek told AFP. ‘Thus the question of her arrest does not arise,’ he said.