The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has demanded the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) set aside the sentence of former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
Mr. Bhutto was hanged in a so-called murder case in 1979.
The PPP leader Shazia Muree in a press conference today said the PPP welcomes the detailed order of the top court and demands that the death sentence given to Mr. Bhutto should be set aside declaring unlawful.
The SC yesterday issued a detailed order on the former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s case stating General Ziaul Haq’s survival depended on finding the former prime minister guilty. The apex court issued a 48-page decision on a reference that President Asif Ali Zardari filed more than a decade ago. This Court in March admitted Bhutto was not given the right to a fair trial. It was admitted about 44 years after Mr. Bhutto was hanged in a murder case. The top court in its short order said the proceedings of the trial by the LHC and the appeal in the SC did not meet the requirements of the fundamental right to a fair trial and due process.
The order that the Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Qazi Faez Isa authored said the trial court, which had tried and convicted Bhutto, and the appellate court, which had dismissed his appeal, were operating under no constitutional rule and one man’s will became legislation and his person had replaced the entire democratic order.
“Was it not obvious that General Zia-ul-Haq would be the direct beneficiary of a guilty verdict? If Mr. Bhutto was acquitted, he may have proceeded to prosecute General Zia-ul-Haq for the crime of high treason,” the order said. The said trial and appellate courts were not true courts under the Constitution, it said.
“The country was captive to Martial Law and so too were its courts. When judges take the oath of allegiance to dictators, the courts are no longer of the people.” In March, the SC closed the hearing of the presidential reference seeking to revisit the 1979 controversial death sentence awarded to the former PM.
A nine-member bench headed by CJP heard this case. In March 1979, nearly two years after the Bhutto government’s ouster by military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq, a seven-judge SC bench, in a split four-three verdict, upheld the Lahore High Court’s verdict awarding death sentence to Mr. Bhutto. In March Additional Attorney General (AAG) Chaudhry Aamir Rehman told the court the government was trying to find out from the record how former director general of the Federal Security Force Masood Mehmood, who later turned approver in the murder case, left Pakistan for the United States where he died.
The AGP office was asked to furnish whether the approver left the country under some deal offered to him or a witness protection program or he just chose to move to America. Ahmed Raza Qasuri, on whose complaint the murder case was registered against Mr. Bhutto, during the proceedings said “Such a development will lower the dignity and respect of the Supreme Court.” He argued the reference was neither a question of public importance nor involved interpretation of a legal question, but an intention for removing stigma. The Supreme Court did not have to wash out the stigma of an individual, he earlier said.
(By Rana Kashif)
