Karachi: Pakistan's former military dictator Pervez Musharraf will have to wait for two weeks to learn if he will be allowed to go abroad to visit his ailing mother after a court on Wednesday adjourned the case till May 7.
Musharraf, who is in Karachi for medical treatment and to visit his daughter, had moved the Sindh High Court against the Interior Ministry's rejection of his request to remove his name from the Exit Control List (ECL).
"The two member bench of the court has adjourned the hearing until May 7," 70-year-old Musharraf's lawyer Farogh Nasim said. The bench comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Shahnawaz Tariq adjourned the hearing following a request by attorney general Salman Aslam.
Aslam requested the court to grant him 10 to 15 days time to submit government's reply. He informed the bench that he had received the court notice late and could not compile appropriate response.
Musharraf had filed the petition last week seeking the removal of his name from the ECL so that he could travel to the UAE to meet his 95-year-old ailing mother. Musharraf's name was put on ECL on April 5 last year to ensure that he remains in the country and attends hearings of all the cases he was named in.
Anybody whose name is on ECL cannot leave the country without permission. On March 31, Musharraf was indicted for suspending, subverting and abrogating the Constitution, imposing an emergency in the country in November 2007 and detaining judges of the superior courts.
The former president, who is the first military ruler in Pakistan's history to be tried in court, has rejected all the charges leveled against him. The former military ruler has been undergoing medical treatment since January and is expected to undergo more tests at the Naval Shifa hospital in Karachi.
A panel of doctors have already examined him at his daughter's residence and recommended that he undergo angioplasty. Musharraf, who returned to Pakistan from self-exile in March last year, was also named as an accused in the murder cases of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 and former Baluchistan tribal leader Akbar Bugti in 2006. He was also named in a case relating to Lal Masjid operation that was carried out during his tenure.
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