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 against the army chief, informed a special court in Islamabad that the first information report was registered against his client without investigation.
Swati was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency last Thursday over his tweet in which he had 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”.
Swati’s tweet had come after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz were acquitted in a high-profile money laundering case.
The senator was later 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, Awan read out the FIR in court. “The FIR states that Swati’s tweet violates the country’s integrity.
“The tweet was done 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?”
A politician’s statement could not affect the country’s armed forces, he said and referred to the Islamabad High Court’s observation that the dignity of judges is not “so frail and vulnerable so as to be harmed by a tweet on social media”.
