The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday approved the post-arrest bail of PTI Senator Azam Swati, who has been in detention since late November over his controversial tweets about senior military officers. Swati was arrested on November 27 after the 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.

Earlier this month, the senator approached a special court in Islamabad for bail. However, Special Judge Central Azam Khan dismissed the plea ruling that he had “committed the same offence twice”. Subsequently, Swati filed a post-arrest bail petition through his lawyer Babar Awan in the IHC, challenging the special court’s orders.

During the hearing today, IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq resumed hearing the PTI senator’s petition and barred the FIA from arresting him. The court approved Swati’s bail against the submission of surety bonds worth Rs200,000.

At the outset of the hearing today, Swati’s counsel Babar Awan told the court that Osman Swati the senator’s son wanted to present his stance. “My father has written a letter from the jail requesting the case to be transferred to another IHC bench. Today I want to read this letter out loud in the courtroom,” Osman said.

For his part, Awan requested the judge to “see the matter today” but Justice Farooq said most of the senior judges were on vacation. “We will form a larger bench next week.” Here, the PTI counsel said that Osman, on Awan’s request, had decided to “take back” his father’s letter addressed to the court.

Subsequently, the lawyer presented his arguments before the court, saying that the respectable court of Sindh and Balochistan had quashed the cases against Swati. “All these complaints against him [Swati] have been taken out from pockets. I have never seen an FIR (first information report) in which the time and place are not mentioned,” Awan stated. He also gave examples of previous cases in which politicians were granted bail on medical grounds.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-INP