'Probe in treason case against Musharraf in final stage'

Islamabad: Pakistan’s main investigation agency is in the last stages of probing a treason case against Pervez Musharraf, signalling that the former dictator’s woes have not ended despite getting bail in four major cases. [caption id=“attachment_1220303” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf.[/caption] Musharraf continues to be on the Interior Ministry’s Exit Control List (ECL), which bars him from leaving the country, and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has to record the statements of only a few witnesses, official sources said. The FIA will seek judicial intervention for questioning Musharraf in the treason case which relates to the emergency imposed by him in 2007, the sources said. “The probe is on and will be completed within the stipulated time. Only a few more witnesses’ statements are to be recorded,” a source told PTI. “ECL is case-specific and the FIA will also seek to put him on ECL in its own case as his statement is yet to be recorded,” the source said. Though the government ordered the inquiry in the treason case in June, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on 12 October that he had asked the FIA to fast-track the probe against Musharraf and to take the matter to a logical conclusion in six weeks. The case was registered against Musharraf for subverting the Constitution by imposing emergency in November 2007. The emergency lasted until 15 December the same year. In July 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that his decision to impose emergency was unconstitutional and illegal. Musharraf was this week released from house arrest after he got bail in a case over the killing of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi during a military crackdown in 2007. Besides the Lal Masjid case, Musharraf has been granted bail in three other cases against him over the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto in 2007, the killing of Baloch leader Akbar Bugti in a 2006 military operation and the sacking of judges in 2007. He was under arrest for nearly six months at his farmhouse on the outskirts of Islamabad, guarded by nearly 300 security personnel. He took power in a 1999 coup and ruled as president until he resigned when he was threatened with impeachment in 2008. He then went into self-imposed exile and returned to Pakistan to participate in the May general election, but he found himself entangled in a legal web. His party says Musharraf will remain in Pakistan and fight all cases. However, some say he could fly out of the country. PTI