Hussain H Zaidi\Reports have it that the original files pertaining to the assets reference against former president Asif Zardari, which is pending before an accountability court, have gone missing. A few months ago, the record relating to two other corruption cases against Zardari – known as the SGS-Cotecna and ARY references – met a similar fate; he was acquitted in both cases.
NAB, the investigating agency concerned, has filed a deposition to the effect of having submitted the original case record to the accountability court – the trial court – about 15 years back, which, NAB says, was not returned. Whatever the reason, as in the past, the former president is likely to be the chief beneficiary of the missing files.
This is not to suggest that the PPP leader or his team have had a hand in the mysterious disappearance of the files. If they had wanted to they could have removed the files without much ado when their party was in power.
At any rate, Zardari has never avoided facing the courts or being imprisoned. In fact, he holds the distinction of being (arguably) the longest serving political prisoner of Pakistan. But then what went amiss?
This is not the first time that material evidence pertaining to a trial or inquiry has gone missing. We keep hearing about fires breaking out at government offices, reducing to ashes vital records and forcing the investigators to halt the probe and close the case.
According to Italian political theorist Gaetano Mosca, all forms of government are at the bottom oligarchic; political power is concentrated in a political elite. The political system, democracy being no exception, then is geared towards securing and safeguarding the interests of the elite notwithstanding all protestations of equality, rule of law and justice.
Mosca’s statement may be too sweeping. But is hard to deny that more often than not there is discrepancy between what a constitutional or political structure is on paper and how it actually works. In case of an immature democracy like Pakistan, the discrepancy is wide enough.
At the time of Pakistan’s birth, people thought that the new state would transform their lot by safeguarding and promoting their political and economic rights. However, that was not to be. Instead, the feudals, who served well the colonial masters before India achieved independence, got ascendancy in the country from day one.
Changes in government couldn’t tone down the enormous powers of the feudals, since by and large leadership on either side of the political divide came from that class.
Then in 1958 General Ayub Khan staged a coup d’état, which had a two-fold significance. One, it marked the emergence of the armed forces as the top player in the game of politics, a position they have maintained to date. The other notable development was the rise of capitalists as a counterpoise to the power of the feudal elite. Over the years, the power of the capitalist class has increased enormously. The powerful people in the three classes – politicians, military men and the business class – constitute the elite.
Our legal-cum-political system has several safety valves built into it for the elite. So the destruction or disappearance of material evidence in high-profile cases should not take anyone by surprise.
These safety valves ensure that the elite are not called to account. In case such acts do come to the surface, the second line of defence gets moving: the charges are dismissed as politically motivated or as a threat to democracy, national security or the economic life of the country. In another line of defence, these powerful people engage the best legal minds, who make the allegations against their clients seem more like an old wives’ tale.
What if the allegations stand in the court of law? No problem. There’s always a higher forum to appeal. Even if this hurdle is crossed, the clauses relating to presidential pardon come in handy – at times on a case-to-case basis, at times taking the form of a law like the NRO that washes away the sins of the high and mighty in one go.
But the story doesn’t end here. The same system that protects the elite at times also condemns their unnatural death to the status of an X file. Take the cases of Liaquat Ali Khan, General Ziaul Haq and Benazir Bhutto.
Khan was shot dead on October 16, 1951 while speaking at a public gathering. His assassin was killed by the police on the spot. The mystery of his assassination has never been cleared up. Zia died in an air crash on August 17, 1988 while still in office. What caused the aircraft to go down is anybody’s guess.
Fingers have been pointed at the US, the former USSR, India, Israel and even high-ranking army officers. The board of inquiry constituted to probe the crash attributed it to an act of sabotage but it failed to point out who the mastermind was. To date, the mystery of Zia’s death has not been unravelled. Perhaps the nation will never be able to know the truth.
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated after she had just finished with an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. She was shot at as she came out of the sunroof of her bulletproof car. The shots were immediately followed by an explosion near the vehicle.
The death was investigated by both Scotland Yard andour local agencies. Later, a UN commission was set up to “establish the facts and circumstances of the assassination”. However, to date the motive behind the killing has not been revealed despite the fact that her party with her husband at its head came to power a few months after her assassination.
Not only was no autopsy conducted after the former prime minister’s death, the crime scene was also washed out without collecting the full forensic evidence. It has also been alleged that the deceased wasn’t provided adequate security in commensuration with the threats to her life.
Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban supremo, as well as Ms Bhutto’s political opponents were charged with the murder. However, the definitive identity of the assassins remains shrouded in mystery.
The writer is a graduate from awestern European university.
Email: hussainhzaidigmail.com