Musharraf kept waiting on verdict

Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court will reconvene a hearing on Friday on whether President Pervez Musharraf's re-election early last month was valid, but has scheduled the following session for November 12 -- three day's before his current term expires.

Pakistan has been awash with rumours, fuelled by comments from government ministers, that Musharraf could invoke emergency powers, or martial law and put off a national election due in January if the court decided that he was not eligible to be president because he was re-elected while still army chief.

"This bench will not be intimidated by any threats," Justice Javed Iqbal said, after anti-government lawyers' noted the warnings issued by some ministers.

"Nobody should think that the court has been taken hostage. Everything will happen according to the law and the constitution," said Iqbal, who heads the 11-member bench.

General Musharraf, who came to power in a coup eight years ago and easily won a re-election vote in parliament on Oct. 6, can remain president after his term expires if no successor is sworn in, according to constitutional experts.

The case was dragged out by a lengthy adjournment during Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, and the latest adjournment allows one of the judges, Justice Raja Fayyaz, to go on leave for his son's wedding.

Musharraf has promised he will quit the army if he gets a second term, and he is committed to holding elections that will mark a transition to civilian-led democracy.

As part of this process he allowed opposition leader, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to return from self-imposed exile without fear of being prosecuted for old corruption charges that she says were politically motivated.