Daily Times

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court has allowed the former Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Saleem Shahzad to go abroad for medical treatment.

The judge has directed Saleem to leave the country for medical treatment for a month and deposit the documents of his property as surety.

The former MQM leader, who is out on bail, is facing a number of terrorism charges ranging from rioting, kidnapping and facilitating suspected terrorists.

The court had earlier granted him a surety bond of Rs500,000. The judge also called in a report from the jail superintendent for not providing medical treatment to the applicant despite a court order.

Saleem Shahzad was arrested shortly after landing at the Karachi airport from Dubai on February 6 this year and sent to prison the following day in a case pertaining to providing shelter and treatment to alleged terrorists at Dr Asim Hussain’s hospitals. Later, the court granted him bail in that case.

However, he was not released as the police showed his arrest in four other cases lodged in the early 1990s and submitted that he was a proclaimed offender in the cases registered at Malir and Landhi police stations pertaining to kidnapping, wrongful confinement, criminal intimidation and rioting.

Published in Daily Times, June 22nd, 2017.