Pakistan court refuses to exempt Musharraf from murder case

Islamabad, March 17: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday refused to grant indefinite exemption to Pakistan's former president Pervez Musharraf from the murder case of a tribal chief.

Musharraf has been formally indicted for the murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti, who was killed in a raid by security forces in Balochistan province in 2006, Xinhua news agency reported.

Mushararf was the country's president at that time.

He has denied the charges and describes the case as politically motivated.

The judge, on a previous hearing, had ordered Musharraf to appear -- however, he was not in the court in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan on Tuesday.

The court had also ordered formation of a medical board to determine the former president's health condition as his lawyer had argued that his client could not appear because of poor health.

Musharraf's lawyer complained that the government had not provided security for his appearance before the medical board.

The court ordered security for Musharraf and granted a one-day exemption and fixed the next hearing for April 8.

The former president is also facing several other cases, including high treason for abrogating the constitution when he had imposed emergency rule in 2007 and the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999 and resigned in August 2008 to avoid impeachment by the parliament, denied all charges and vowed to defend himself in courts.

He returned to Pakistan in 2013 after over four years of self-imposed exile in Britain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The courts had, however, disqualified him from holding any public office.

IANS