Pervez Musharraf's travel ban hearing adjourned

The hearing of Pervez Musharraf's petition to lift a ban on him leaving Pakistan was today adjourned till November 22, a day after the government said the former President would be tried for high treason.

The former President had applied last week to be removed from the Interior Ministry's Exit Control List, which bars him from leaving the country. In his petition, Musharraf said he wants to visit Dubai to meet his ailing 95-year-old mother.

The Sindh High Court in Karachi today put off his petition until November 22 after the federal government's Attorney General failed to attend the hearing.

In the petition, Musharraf had requested the court to amend its earlier order restraining him from leaving the country without permission of various courts hearing cases against him.

Since his return for the May elections, several cases have been registered against Musharraf.

His inclusion in the list is the only hurdle to his travelling abroad as he has already been granted bail in four major cases, including one over the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Musharraf, who was under house arrest for more than six months in his sprawling Chak Shahzad farmhouse in Islamabad, also got bail last week in the case over the killing of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

His chief lawyer, Raza Kasuri, said the legal team was confident Musharraf's appeal for his removal from the Exit Control List would be accepted by the court.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had yesterday made it clear that Musharraf would be tried for high treason for imposing emergency in 2007. He could face the death penalty or life imprisonment if the charge is proved.