ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator, Azam Swati, submitted before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that he did not post the controversial tweets against the army officials and had no intention to “defame any respectable institution”.
Swati, on Saturday, filed a post-arrest bail petition through advocate Babar Awan in the IHC against the order of the Special Judge Central Azam Khan, who dismissed his plea stating that the PTI senator had “committed the same offence twice”.
The IHC will take up the PTI leader’s appeal against the Special Judge, Islamabad on Monday (December 26).
Swati was arrested on November 27 after the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) booked him in Islamabad over a “highly obnoxious campaign of intimidating tweets […] against state institutions”. It was the second time that Swati was booked and arrested by the FIA over his tweets about army officials in less than two months.
Islamabad court rejects Azam Swati’s bail plea
The petition said that Swati was “falsely implicated due to political influences of a hostile regime” and the cases against him were registered with “malafide intention”. It further said Swati was earlier remanded into the FIA’s custody but nothing “incriminating” was recovered from him and; hence, he was sent to jail on judicial remand.
It pointed out, the senator was ‘abducted’ from the PIMS Hospital later — where he was taken for medical treatment — in the “aircraft of IG Police Balochistan”. “However, during the course of physical remand, the honourable Balochistan High Court was pleased to quash all the FIRs (registered against him) in two petitions.”
The BHC had also barred the police from filing further cases against him.
“But he (Swati) was again ‘kidnapped’ in another FIRs lodged against him in Sindh,” the petition said, adding later on, the Sindh High Court (SHC) had placed all the FIRs against him in C-class.
It contended that the entire case against Swati consisted of a “documented allegation” and that there was no “useful purpose” of keeping him in custody.
The plea also pointed out that the “alleged tweets were not posted by the petitioner nor he had any intention to defame any respectable institution” and that the prosecution had no evidence against him.
Swati has requested the IHC to grant him post-arrest bail till the conclusion of the trial “in the best interest of justice”.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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