Re: Ex-LHC judge released on bail after 22 years
http://dawn.com/2008/06/26/nat26.htm
Ex-judge has to wait for a lucky break
By Mudassir Raja
RAWALPINDI, June 25: Hopes of a former ad hoc judge of the Lahore High Court that he would be released on bail on Tuesday after spending 22 years in jail collapsed when he was informed he has to appear before a concerned court on June 28.
Dr Mustafa Ismail Qazi, the former judge, says he was put in jail in 1986 after he ordered the then First Lady to appear in his court in a drug trafficking case. Though granted bail in 1998 in two of the several cases registered against him, he continued to rot in jail.
On May 9 he was shifted from Multan to Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail where he was informed this week by court officials that Special Judge Central (SJC) Justice Shaukat Ali Sajid had verified that he was granted bail in 1998 against surety bonds worth Rs200,000 in the two cases registered against him with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and that he would be released after the orders were sent to the jail authorities.
Jail sources said the former judge could not be released as the concerned judge put off the hearing of his case till June 28, despite the fact that he had already been granted bail in the two cases charging him with extorting money from people on the pretext of sending them abroad.
Dr Qazi, who holds a PhD in Arabic, told Dawn that there was no legal justification for keeping him in jail after he was acquitted in all other cases except the two registered in Rawalpindi. Even in these two cases he was granted bail 10 years ago and was still intact.
He said he was shifted to Adiala Jail on May 9 from Multan after he was cleared in all cases registered against him in Multan, Karachi and Hyderabad to face two cases registered by the FIA in 1986.
“Since May 9, I am being kept in unlawful confinement as the bail orders of the court are not being implemented,” he said.
Dr Qazi, who has remained an under-trial prisoner for 22 years, burst into tears of joy after he learnt that he might be released Tuesday evening.
Instead he got the shock of another appearance before a court on June 28. He could not be put on trial as the police files of his cases got lost over the years.
Dr Qazi alleged that he was kept in the jail for a long time without any legal aid because as a judge he had summoned wife of a former president of the country in a drug case.
“Can anybody bring back my lost 22 years? I am an old man now and will not get another life,” asked the elderly Dr Qazi, a diabetes patient, with tears rolling down his cheeks.
Even when released, there would be nobody to receive him outside the jail, he said. His only daughter lives abroad and his parents, an elder brother and his two wives are all dead.
