Pakistan sentences Musharraf to death
ISLAMABAD, Dec 17, (AP): A Pakistani court on Tuesday sentenced the country’s former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf to death in a treason case related to the state of emergency he imposed in 2007 while in power, officials said.
It’s the first time in Pakistan’s history that a former army chief and ruler of the country has been sentenced to death. Musharraf, who was sentenced in absentia, has been out of the country since 2016, when he was allowed to leave on bail to seek medical treatment abroad.
He has been living in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and is said to be very ill and unlikely to travel home to face the sentence. Pakistan and the UAE have no extradition treaty and Emirati authorities are unlikely to arrest Musharraf. If he were to return, however, Musharraf would have the right to challenge his conviction and sentence in court.
The ruling Tuesday by a threejudge panel was not unanimous and one of the judges had opposed the death sentence, according to Akhtar Shah, one of Musharraf’s lawyers. Shah said he would appeal the sentence.
Message
“Musharraf today sent me a message, saying he is ready to come to Pakistan but his doctors are not allowing him to travel,” the lawyer told The Associated Press following the ruling. He added that Musharraf offered to give a statement to the court through a video link but the request was denied. A senior Supreme Court lawyer, Hamid Ali Khan, hailed the verdict as long overdue. “For the first time in the history of Pakistan ... a military dictator has been punished by a court of law,” he said.
After the sentence was announced, Pakistan’s Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan told reporters that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government would “review in detail” the verdict before commenting on it. Khan, who enjoys good ties with the country’s powerful military, is expected to return home from Geneva on Wednesday.
The military did not immediately react to the death sentence for Musharaf, a former army chief. Defense Minister Pervez Khattak said the ailing former dictator still has the right to appeal.
Denounced
Mehrene Malik Adam, the secretary-general of Musharraf’s small opposition party All Pakistan Muslim League, denounced the trial. “Legal requirements were not met and our lawyers were not given the opportunity to present their case,” she said.
In an infamous purge in 2007, Musharraf imposed a state of emergency and placed several key judges under house arrest in the capital, Islamabad, and elsewhere in Pakistan. He came to power after ousting former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in a 1999 bloodless coup.
Later, when he was back in office, Sharif first accused Musharraf of treason in 2013. The general was formally charged in 2014.
Musharraf was hospitalized again last week in Dubai but the state of his health or a specific reason for this hospitalization has not been announced. Earlier, in a video message he released two weeks ago, Musharraf said he was ready to record his statement about the treason case for the court but that he was unable to travel to Pakistan.
Also:
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani lawyer known for pursuing cases of those unlawfully detained by the country’s security agencies was abducted overnight from his home in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, his son said Tuesday.
According to the son, several armed men in plainclothes knocked on the gate of the family’s home on Monday night. When the family opened the door, the men barged in and snatched his father, Inamur Rehman, shoved him into a car and then sped away.
Rehman, a lawyer and a retired military officer, was never a threat to anyone, said the son, Husnain Inam. He refused to speculate on who was behind the abduction.
“We are still in a state of shock,” said Inam, adding that the family was too terrified to cry out for help during the abduction. Inam, a college teacher, said he’s formally reporting the abduction to the police. No government official could immediately be reached to comment.
Rehman has been vocal critic of Pakistani security agencies and has also represented several people detained by the country’s militarybacked spy agency in recent years. He has previously reported being harassed by security agencies.