KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Tuesday acquitted interned MNA Ali Wazir along with 10 other Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) leaders in asedition and incendiary speech case for lack of evidence.

MNA Wazir, Naimatullah, Noorullah Tareen, Muhammadullah, Ahsanullah, Javed Raheem, Muhammad Sarwar, Muhammad Sher Khan, Ibrahim, Sher Ayub, Muhammad Tahir alias Qazir Tahir and Baseerullah were exonerated in the case pertaining to delivering anti-state speeches at a rally in Sohrab Goth on Dec 6, 2020.

PTM`s chief Manzoor Pashteen, MNA Mohsin and others havebeen declared proclaimed offenders in the case.

On Tuesday, the ATC-XII judge, who conducted the trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, pronounced his verdict reserved afterrecording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge pronounced that the prosecution had failed to produce a memory card containing the alleged incendiary speech of the legislator and others, adding that similarly the prosecution alsofailed to play the DVD containing video of such speeches in court, Therefore, such evidence was not admissible in court to lead to the conviction of the accused persons, defence counsel Qadir Khan told Dawn.

He said that the judge in the verdict also observed that the Urdu transcripts of the speeches, which were prepared by a policeman of the Karachi police and another by a professor at Peshawar University, were similar, thus these transcripts were also notadmissible evidence being a ditto copy of each other in the light of a judgement rendered by the Supreme Court, whereby it had framed principles for the admissibility of evidences in the trial courts.

Ali Wazir, who was arrested from Peshawar in connection with the present case and flown to Karachi where he had been incarcerated in the central prison since Dec 31, 2020, has already been granted post-arrest bail in the present case as well as three other identical cases registered against him at the Sohrab Goth, Shah Latif and Clifton police stations.

`However, Ali Wazir`s immediate release in not in the sight since he has also been booked in the fifth identical case pertaining to sedition lodged against himat the Miramshah police station,` his lawyer said.

On Tuesday, Ali Wazir and Naimatullah were produced from prison while others appeared in court on bail.

The MNA has been booked in cases registered under Sections 124-A (sedition), 125 (waging war against any power in alliance with Pakistan), 147 (punishment for rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed inprosecution of common object), 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot, if rioting be committed; if not committed), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups etc), 500 (punishment for defamation), 505 (statement conducing to public mischief) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the AntiTerrorism Act, 1997.