Musharraf, Pinochet mentioned in Hussain’s plea

ISLAMABAD: Two military dictators --Chile’s Augusto Pinochet and Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf --were mentioned in the application filed in the Supreme Court by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s son Hussain Nawaz, while justifying his attack on two members of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), seeking their removal from the probe body.

The five-page plea pointed out that in similar circumstances in Pinochet’s case, a judgement rendered by a five-member Appellate Committee of the House of Lords in Britain was set aside solely on the ground that the wife of one of its members was a supporter of the cause of an NGO/subsidiary of the Amnesty International (AI) whose issues, inter alia, formed part of the subject matter to be decided by that bench.

The reference was made to back up Hussain’s request for exclusion of Bilal Rasool, who represents the Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), from the JIT.

There was a hard-fought 16-month legal battle in the House of Lords. Pinochet claimed immunity from prosecution as a former head of state under the State Immunity Act 1978. This was rejected, as the Lords decreed that some international crimes, such as torture, could not be protected by former head of state. The Lords, however, decided in March 1999 that Pinochet could only be prosecuted for crimes committed after 1988, the year during which Britain implemented legislation for the UN Convention against Torture in the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

In 1998, Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990 and still had much influence there, travelled to Britain for medical treatment. He was arrested on October 17, 1998, under an international arrest warrant issued by judge Baltasar Garzón of Spain and was placed under house arrest, initially in the clinic where he had just undergone back surgery and later in a rented house. The charges included 94 counts of torture of Spanish citizens, the 1975 assassination of a Spanish diplomat, and one count of conspiracy to commit torture. Allegations of abuses had been made numerous times before his arrest, including since the beginning of his rule, but never acted upon.

Arguing against Bilal Rasool’s inclusion in the JIT, Hussain noted that this officer was a real maternal nephew of former Punjab Governor Mian Muhammad Azhar, who along with his immediate family members is an ardent supporter of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). He asserted that it has also been established that Mian Azhar’s family is very closely associated with Imran Khan as is evident from the photograph of Mian Azhar’s son, Hammad, with the PTI chairman taken on April 29, 2017 at the latter’s residence.

The applicant attached excerpts from exchange of messages between Bilawal Rasool and Kinza Safdar on Facebook. He claimed that the official is a vocal critic of the present government and has been pro-PTI, though discreetly at times, being a government servant,  having scant regard for the Head of the State (reference was made to his updated post on March 25, 2015), while his wife is an active PTI supporter and had been frequently posting remarks on the social media in PTI’s favour till such time Bilal Rasool was inducted in the JIT, when his wife immediately removed all her posts/remarks from her social media account. Actually, Hussain said, this latter fact had also run alarm bells in his mind as her removal of posts indicated and exhibited her anxiety to conceal her loyalty, devotion and unremitting support for the PTI.

Musharraf was mentioned in the application as the other JIT member, Amer Aziz, who was taken from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in the forum, had worked as banking expert in the preparation of the Reference No5/2000 by the National Accountability (NAB) against Nawaz Sharif and his family members, during Musharraf’s rule. He formed core part of the NAB investigation that had been carried out in respect of Hudaibya Paper Mills during the dictatorial regime.

The plea stated that in 2000, Amer Aziz was working as Director, Banking Inspection Department (BID), when he was brought in the NAB as director on deputation with effective from March 24, 2000, by the Musharraf regime to form part of the team that was constituted to implicate Nawaz Sharif and his family members in several false and concocted criminal cases.

It is also known to all that Musharraf is and has been at least since 1999 (though even before that) inimically disposed towards Nawaz Sharif and has persistently harboured ill-will and hatred towards him, the application read. Recently, this hatred stands even more indelibly entrenched in his mind since the lodging of complaint which led to Musharraf’s trial for high treason, pursuant to which he is presently living abroad in self-exile on the pretext of needing medical treatment.

Another fact noted in the plea was that Amer Aziz was chief financial officer of Al-Baraka Islamic Bank before joining the SBP in 1997, which was an associated organisation of Al-Towfeek Company for investment funds, which had a commercial dispute with the Hudaibya Paper Mills that got settled ultimately after a protracted litigation in 2000.