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ISLAMABAD: Former president Gen Pervez Musharraf’s heroics in coming back to Pakistan could prove another misadventure for him. Not only half a dozen of court cases await him here but all the political parties represented in the Senate are agreed that the former army chief and president should be arrested on arrival and tried for treason.
That may sound a far cry in realpolitik, but at least in one case a trial court has already proclaimed him an absconder.
There are cases against him pending in the Supreme Court, in three provinces and in the federal capital. The charges against him range from being complicit in the murders of the Baloch leader Akbar Bugti and the leader of the ruling PPP, Benazir Bhutto, to detaining judges of the superior courts illegally and disappearing people.
According to Barrister Masroor Shah, defence counsel of former interior minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao in Bugti murder case, the allegations against Musharraf are of serious nature and if convicted he could be sentenced to death or imprisonment for life.
Mr Sherpao, he said, was named an accused because of the position he held in Musharraf’s civilian setup, but had nothing to do with the military operation that killed Akbar Bugti.
He said Mr Sherpao had joined the investigation and had cleared his position but former president neither appeared in the court in his defence nor any of his counsels joined the investigation.
Bugti was killed along with his associates in a military operation on August 26, 2006 in the mountainous Bhamboor Range near Kohlu and Bugti tribal territory following a two-day battle.
Balochistan High Court in November last year issued arrest warrants for Musharraf in Bugti’s murder case.
Nawabzada Jamil Bugti, the eldest son of Bugti, had registered an FIR at the Dera Bugti police station against Musharraf, the then prime minister Shaukat Aziz, interior minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, Balochistan governor Owais Ahmed Ghani, chief minister Jam Mohammad Yousaf and his home minister, Shoaib Ahmed Nosherwani.
Musharraf is also an accused in the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
An anti-terrorism court trying the case in Rawalpindi declared Musharraf a ‘proclaimed offender’ when he did not appear before the court. The trial judge also ordered the confiscation of Musharraf’s property.
The senior prosecutor of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told Dawn that Musharraf for his alleged abetment in the conspiracy of killing Ms Bhutto was nominated in the case.
According to him the prosecution also made part of the challan the telephonic conversation between Mr Musharraf and Ms Bhutto when the latter was with Mark Seigal, a US citizen. She told him that Musharraf used abusive language against her on telephone and also warned her why she was returning to Pakistan from self-exile in contradiction to the understandings she had reached with him (Musharraf) not to come before the general elections.
Musharraf is also claimed to have told her that in that case he would not take any responsibility for her security.
FIA prosecutor Ali said Musharraf is facing charges of abetment under Section 109 of PPC, and recalled that Benazir’s father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was also awarded death sentence under the same section.
A district and sessions judge in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in October 2009, passed a judgment against Musharraf and directed the authorities to declare him a proclaimed offender in a case of alleged abduction of a scientist Attiqur Rehman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission who ‘disappeared’ in 2004.
A petition of Maulvi Iqbal Haider is pending in the Supreme Court seeking action against Musharraf for violating the Constitution, using national resources illegally, damaging the federation and spoiling the state’s reputation.
The Sindh High Court, however, had dismissed the petition last year.
Chaudhry Mohammad Aslam, an Islamabad-based lawyer, registered an FIR against Musharraf in Secretariat police station under sections 344/34 PPC, seeking legal action against Musharraf for illegally detaining the judges of the superior courts after imposing emergency in the country on November 3, 2007.
“I am awaiting his return so that proceeding against the accused could begin. Musharraf might get three-year imprisonment in this case if convicted,” said Mr Aslam. In addition, Mr Musharraf faces two cases of keeping the former ISI officer Khalid Khawaja in confinement, and a damages suit file by Mr Khawaja prior to his murder in the tribal areas of Pakistan by Pakistani Taliban.
On the other hand, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Musharraf’s counsel said the cases against Musharraf were baseless and politically motivated.
He said Musharraf was not responsible for Bugti’s death because the military operation in which Mr Bugti was killed was started on the request of the provincial government. It was more or less the same kind of operation that the military conducted in Swat, he said.
If Musharraf was involved in the case then the prosecution should also take action against “his associates who are nowadays serving the army in top ranks or are actively engaged in politics”, the counsel said.
In the Benazir murder case, Chaudhry Fawad said Musharraf is accused of not providing adequate security to Ms Bhutto. He said Musharraf was not responsible for her security and could not be blamed for security lapse. If he, being head of state, is held responsible for Benazir’s killing then Asif Ali Zardari was also responsible for the killing of Punjab governor Salman Taseer and Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, he asserted.
According to Chaudhry Fawad, the rest of the cases against the former president and army chief were of ordinary nature and have no force. Mr Musharraf was not afraid of these cases and the litigation could not stop his return, he said.
