Beleaguered former military dictator Pervez Musharraf on Saturday was summoned by a Pakistani court to appear on March 1 in a case related to the killing of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rasheed Ghazi in a 2007 military raid.
The case is being heard by an additional sessions court here. Musharraf's lawyers submitted an application requesting that the 70-year-old former president be exempted from attending Saturday's proceedings. The court accepted the application and ordered Musharraf to appear at the next hearing on March 1.
The judge directed authorities to submit a new supplementary chargesheet in the case before the next hearing. The radical cleric died when the army stormed the pro-Taliban Lal Masjid in the heart of Islamabad in 2007 to flush out militants holed up in the mosque. About 100 people died in the assault.
The operation, ordered by Musharraf, followed a week-long standoff between extremists and security forces. Musharraf is also scheduled to appear in a special court conducting his treason trial on February 18 and in another case over the detention of judges on February 24.
The former army chief was admitted to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in Rawalpindi on January 2 after he developed heart problems while being taken to the special court. He has skipped all hearings in the treason trial, prompting the judges to issue a bailable arrest warrant for him.
Musharraf returned to Pakistan from self-exile last year to contest the general elections but was barred from polls for life by a High Court. He was entangled in a web of cases that resulted in him being put under house arrest for over six months.
Though he secured bail in four major cases against him, the government formed the special court to try him on charges of high treason for imposing emergency in 2007.
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