Tweet Against Army Chief, PTI Azam Swati Presented before Islamabad High Court

 

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Saturday presented PTI Senator Azam Swati before an Islamabad district and sessions court in a case pertaining to a tweet against state institutions, including the army chief. 

Earlier in the day, the former minister was taken to the Pims Hospital for a medical examination. 

On Thursday, the court had remanded the PTI leader into FIA custody for two days after Swati named Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa in his tweet denouncing the acquittals of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son in a multi-billion-rupee money laundering case, registered against them during the PTI rule. 

In the tweet, the senator sarcastically congratulated “Mr Bajwa” and a few others, saying “your plan is really working and all criminals are getting free at cost of this country” and alleging corruption had been “legitimised”. 

He had also accused the “agencies” of custodial torture, saying that a “parliamentarian has been stripped”, after which the court had instructed FIA to get a medical examination of the PTI leader conducted. 

Swati’s claims had triggered criticism and condemnations from PTI and other segments of society against his alleged torture. 

Today’s hearing 

At the outset of the hearing today, the court of Senior Civil Judge Muhammad Shabbir was told that the federal government had appointed Raja Rizwan Abbasi as the prosecutor in the case. 

Meanwhile, PTI lawyer Babar Awan said that he would present arguments on the sections included in the complaint lodged against Swati. 

The FIR 

The first information report registered at the FIA’s Cyber Crime Reporting Centre in Islamabad, a copy of which Dawn.com has seen, 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”.