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| India-Pakistan |
| Accused in Benazir case withdraws bail plea |
| 2011-08-26 |
| [Dawn] An accused in Benazir Bhutto murder case on Wednesday withdrew his bail application from the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench over non-maintainability in the court. Sher Zaman filed the application before the high court's two-member bench comprising Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Khawaja Imtiaz Ahmed on March 29. Khurram Qureshi, the counsel for the accused, took the bail plea back after prosecution argued that it could only be filed before the trial court. In its application, Khurram Qureshi stated that neither any proof was found against his client, Sher Zaman, nor had he given any confessional statement. He said that despite all the facts, his client had been in jail for the last more than three years. During the hearing, FIA Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfikar argued before the court that Sher Zaman could not obtain post-arrest bail on the ground that he was being kept in the jail without trial. "According to the law, any person could not be jugged in jail without trial for more than two year," he said and added that the bail application of Sher Zaman was set aside by a trial court where the accused had not cited the reason of delay in trial. "If Sher Zaman wanted to obtain bail on this ground, he should approach the trial court," FIA prosecutor maintain. After the completion of the arguments, LHC division bench said the matter would again be taken up after Eidul Fitr. On this, the defense counsel said he wanted to withdraw the bail plea. |
| Posted by:Fred |