LAHORE, Sept 15: Lawyers who have been defending Benazir Bhutto in the courts in Islamabad and Lahore believe that there is no legal reason why the PPP chairperson, who is scheduled to end her self-exile after more than nine and a half years, should be taken into custody.
Even otherwise, the former prime minister left the country after a division bench of the Lahore High Court allowed her to visit abroad granting her request that her name should be struck down from the Exit Control List.
The division bench, comprising Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum (now attorney-general) and Justice Najamul Hasan Kazmi, decided the matter in the petitioner’s favour on Dec 12, 1997, and Benazir Bhutto left for Dubai on Jan 13, 1998.
The LHC allowed Ms Bhutto’s petition on an assurance given by her counsel, Senator Sardar Mohammad Lateef Khan Khosa, that he would undertake that proceedings in the references against Ms Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari shall not be affected in Ms Bhutto’s absence from the country and that he (the counsel) shall appear on each of the proceedings to ensure the references’ smooth proceedings. The LHC also said in the decision that Ms Bhutto and Mr Zardari could be convicted in their absence. It was on Mr Khosa’s assurance to meet the conditions that the LHC accepted Ms Bhutto’s petition.
The senior jurist, who is also a member of the 22-man Pakistan Bar Council and who has been appearing in superior court in three references, says that no criminal proceedings are pending against the PPP chairperson in any court across the country.
Mr Khosa says the former prime minister was convicted in no criminal cases anywhere in Pakistan except for a Lahore accountability court which sentenced her to three-year imprisonment in the year 2002 and the Lahore High Court subsequently suspended the execution of the sentence while accepting an appeal against the verdict. The LHC admitted the appeal for regular hearing and issued notices to respondents – the federation and the National Accountability Bureau – which had raised no objection to Ms Bhutto’s petition for a visit abroad.
REFERENCES: Three presidential references were prepared by the Ehtasab Bureau of the Nawaz Sharif government under the Ehtasab Ordinance of 1997. Two of them charged Ms Bhutto and her husband with receiving kickbacks from Switzerland-based firms Cotecna and the SGS, who had been awarded contract for pre-shipment assessment of customs duty on exportable merchandise.
The third reference charged the former prime minister with making illegal assets by misusing her authority.
It my be mentioned here that the contract with the two Swiss companies was negotiated by the Nawaz Sharif government and the subsequently Benazir government awarded the contract to them.
Interestingly, the second Sharif government did not scrap the contract and the Mushrraf government also retained the two Swiss firms to continue till their contract ended in 2001.
Proceedings on the references against Benazir and Zardari started in two Ehtasab benches of the LHC as the 1997 law provided that only the benches of superior courts will be authorised to proceed on references. The Ehtasab court, headed by Justice Malik Qayyum, sentenced Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari on April 10, 1999 to five-year term each in prison along with a heavy fine. In the meantime, the famous tape scandal surfaced and the two convicts moved the Supreme Court in appeal against the decision. A seven-judge bench of apex court, headed by Justice Jahangiri, quashed the sentence and also passed strictures against certain judges. The judgment on the appeals by Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari has been reported first in 1999 SCMR 1619 and then, on April 6, 2001, in PLD 2001 SC 568. The Supreme Court also remanded the references for re-adjudication.
Meanwhile, the Ehtasab law changed in 1999 and the new statute set up accountability courts to take up references. On being remanded, the references against Benazir and Zardari were taken up by an accountability court of Lahore. Their counsel, Mr Khosa, produced the LHC decision of allowing Ms Bhutto to go abroad. According to Mr Khosa, the court had proceeded under section 31-A of the old Ehtasab law which was no longer the relevant statute. The court issued several orders for Benazir to appear and then in the late 2001, it sentenced Ms Bhutto to three years in prison in absentia.
Advocate Khosa says he moved the LHC in appeal and a division bench admitted the appeal for issuing notices to respondent federation and the NAB. The only conviction has been in the case of non-appearance and that, too, has been challenged in the superior court which has admitted the appeal for hearing. The federation or the NAB is yet to move a court for Benazir’s surrender before a court and thus no case is pending against Ms Bhutto in any court throughout Pakistan, Mr Khosa says.
Besides, a former Lahore High Court judge Syed Zahid Husain Bokhari has also been appearing on behalf of Ms Bhutto in the reference alleging her of misuse of authority to make assets disproportionate to her known sources of income. Advocate Mian Jahangir has been the counsel for Asif Ali Zardari in a number of criminal cases. They also maintain that no case is pending against any of the former rulers who cannot be arrested on arrival in Pakistan.
ZARDARI: Mr Zardari has been released on bail in all cases against him, some of them in Karachi courts. His counsel says he is now living in a rented flat in New York and is taking complete bed rest under a directive of his physician.
Mr Zardari was operated upon first in Dubai and then in New York and he is also suffering from back problem.
Doctors say hectic political activity like taking part in rallies will be dangerous for him. “Thus, Mr Zardari, who is not returning to Pakistan along with his wife, is ruled out of politics for the time being,” according to his counsel.
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