Musharraf calls legal team to prepare homecoming plan

Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf has summoned his legal team to Dubai to finalise a strategy to avert his possible arrest during his planned homecoming next month.

An anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi has issued a permanent non-bailable arrest warrant for Musharraf for failing to cooperate with investigators probing the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

The same court has ordered the seizure of his property and freezing of his bank accounts after declaring him a fugitive.

Musharraf's legal team is considering challenging several arrest warrants issued for the former military ruler in a high court. The team, comprising Muhammad Ali Saif, Ahmed Raza Kasuri, Fawad Chaudhry, Muaz Butt, Sadiq Mirza and Malik Shafiq, will hold a meeting with Musharraf in Dubai on December 26.

"Gen Musharraf has called his legal team to Dubai next week to finalise a strategy to deal with the looming threat of his arrest in the Benazir Bhutto case and other challenges he is expected to face on his return," Saif told PTI.

He said: "Moving court against the anti-terrorism court's order is one option to get the former president relief in cases he is facing." If this fails, Saif said, "We will go for all-out confrontation".

Another close aide of Musharraf, who did not want to be named, said that if members of the superior judiciary tried to settle "personal scores", the former President would not hesitate in taking them on.

Musharraf has been living outside Pakistan since April 2009. He left the country after a raft of criminal and civil cases were filed against him across Pakistan. Fawad Chaudhry, the spokesman for Musharraf's All Pakistan Muslim League, said the former President  would announce the date of his return on December 31.

"Gen Musharraf, after chairing back to back meetings of his party members next week, will announce the date of his homecoming on December 31," he said. He said Musharraf was more concerned about his security than the chances of his arrest.

"The former President is a brave man and he is not afraid of the charges he is facing in the Benazir Bhutto case or any other case. He chose to advance his date of homecoming in the wake of current political and economic crises in the country," Chaudhry said.

Musharraf had earlier announced that he would return to Pakistan on March 23. However, after his aides advised him that this could be too late for him to capitalise on the current political uncertainty in Pakistan, Musharraf recently told a rally that he would return next month.

The aides reportedly told Musharraf that the Pakistan People's Party-led government might be sent packing before the Senate elections in March in the wake of the Memogate scandal and his presence in the country could help him get a "suitable position" in the national scene.