Daily Times

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Senator Azam Swati’s counsel, Babar Awan, during a hearing on Wednesday on the former’s bail application in a case related to a controversial tweet, informed a special court in Islamabad that the first information report (FIR) was registered against his client without proper investigation. Azam Swati was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) last Thursday, and was sent to Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail on 14-day judicial remand. The PTI leader moved an application before the FIA’s special court seeking his release on post-arrest bail. Special Judge Central Raja Asif Mehmood took up the application and issued a notice to the FIA. During the hearing, Babar Awan read out the FIR in the court. “The FIR states that Swati’s tweet violates the country’s integrity. The tweet was posted at 7pm and the FIR was registered at 1am. When and where was the investigation done?” he asked. “How can the FIA arrest a person without investigation,” he asked. A politician’s statement could not affect the country’s armed forces, he argued, and referred to the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) observation that the dignity of judges is not “so frail and vulnerable so as to be harmed by a tweet on social media”. Babar Awan questioned what act of treason Swati had committed through his tweet. “The IHC chief justice rightly questioned whether institutions were so feeble they would get scared of one man.” Subsequently, Babar Awan completed his arguments. Prosecutor Raja Rizwan Abbasi asked the court to grant him some time to prepare his arguments. “You are not a child who needs to be given time to prepare,” the judge told Abbasi. The hearing was then adjourned the hearing till today (Thursday). The FIR registered at the FIA’s Cyber Crime Reporting Centre in Islamabad mentions that Swati tweeted with “malafide intentions & ulterior motives” against “State institutes of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and its senior government functionaries including Chief of The Army Staff of Pakistan Army”.