'Pakistan president immunity papers stolen'

Documents on presidential immunity have been stolen from the home of an official of Pakistan's supreme court at a time when the judiciary is pressuring the government to revive graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, the media here reported on Friday.

Despite the theft of a thesis on presidential immunity from his home in Sector G-10 of Islamabad on Wednesday night, judicial assistant Yousuf Jan Marwat has not yet registered a first information report with police, sources said.

Marwat works in the apex court's record branch.

It could not immediately be ascertained whether Marwat was researching the issue of presidential immunity on his own or on the instructions of his superiors.

Supreme court registrar Faqir Hussain confirmed the incident involving Marwat to the Dawn newspaper.

Hussain said he believed the thesis Marwat was working on "was missing".

Police officials said Marwat had told them that when he returned home from his hometown of Lakki Marwat after four days of leave, he had found the lock on the main door broken.

Marwat initially told police some valuables were stolen but later changed his statement and said nothing was missing.

Police officials confirmed that Marwat had not yet registered an FIR though an entry about the incident had been made in the daily diary of Ramna police station.

The missing thesis reportedly contained research papers on the immunity of heads of states around the world.

Marwat told the media that a copy of these documents had been submitted to Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

The apex court has been pushing the government to revive cases of alleged money laundering against Zardari in

Switzerland since late 2009, when it struck down the National

Reconciliation Ordinance, a graft amnesty that was issued by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

The court has initiated contempt proceedings against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for failing to act on its orders.

Gilani on Thursday said he would rather be incarcerated for committing contempt than violate the Constitution by acting on the Supreme Court's order to reopen the cases against Zardari.

Violating the Presidential immunity guaranteed by the

Constitution was tantamount to treason and could lead to a death sentence, he said.

On the other hand, Gilani said he would be jailed for only six months for committing contempt.