Pervez Musharraf denied justice, say supporters

LONDON: Former president General (R) Pervez Musharraf’s supporters allege that he has been treated unfairly and that he doesn’t deserve death sentence after being tried under Article 6 of the Constitution for high treason.

Activists of All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) gathered outside the Pakistan High Commission to “demand justice for Pervez Musharraf” and to register condemnation of the “politically motivated” cases against their leader.

Afzal Siddiqui, President APML Overseas, Saeed Bhatti, President APML UK; Asif Shahzad, Adam Gheeasuddin, General Secretary APML UK, Fehmeeda Abbasi, President Women Wing APML UK, Altaf Shahid and others led the protest.

Raising slogans in support of Musharraf, they said the ex-president had brought a lot of development to Pakistan and under him the country earned respect in the world. They claimed that Musharraf’s years in power were the “golden era” of Pakistan and he dealt with terrorism effectively. The protestors said the verdict delivered by the Islamabad Special Court against Musharraf was unfair.

Afzal Siddiqui said the APML condemned the paragraph 66 of the Special Court verdict. He claimed that Musharraf was not given the right to a fair trial and the way this trial was initiated and conducted showed that it had always been an exercise of “revenge”.

He criticised former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry for instructing the government to invoke Article 6 against Musharraf. He said it became clear when a Supreme Court judge openly mocked the former president.

Siddiqui said, “The political, fabricated and fraudulent nature of the case may also be gauged from the fact that it was hastily concluded without hearing the former president, sentencing him in absentia, restricting the latter from presenting evidence and by aggressively dismissing the noble efforts of the law minister and the attorney general for remedying earlier serious politicised legal shortcomings. The new prosecution team was not even granted the time to study the case.”

A petition presented to diplomats at the Pakistan High Commission said holding the Constitution in abeyance was not an offence according to the Pakistani constitution in 2007. Only later in 2010 through the 18th Amendment, the text of Article 6 was modified to make abeyance of the constitution an offense, it said.

The petition thanked Imran Khan’s government “for parting ways with the previous regime and for taking steps to ensure fairness”.

It added: “We ask to declare null and void this bizarre Special Court judgment and reject all malicious attempts to label Pervez Musharraf a ‘traitor’. The honourable Pervez Musharraf has fought wars for Pakistan and was the beloved Chief of Pakistan Army. His tenure witnessed unprecedented growth of the Pakistani economy and led to the betterment of the Pakistani people. Pervez Musharraf can never be a traitor.”