Islamabad: The government on Thursday set up a team of investigators to probe the 2007 emergency clampdown by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in order to prepare the ground for his trial on high treason charges.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan announced the move in the National Assembly while a Supreme Court bench reserved its verdict on a set of petitions seeking Musharraf’s trial over alleged treason, after concluding the hearing of the case.
The three-judge bench rejected a plea to order the arrest of the former president saying no formal charges had been laid yet against him. It gave no date for announcing its judgement on the petitions.
During the proceedings the bench pointed out that Musharraf’s name was already on the government’s exit control list, which bars specified people from leaving the country.
Earlier, Attorney General Munir A. Malik informed the court that under directives issued by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif a commission would also be constituted to oversee the entire investigation process.
The investigation team is made up of four officers of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the interior minister said in the National Assembly. The officers are Mohammad Khalid Qureshi‚ Mohammad Azam Khan‚ Hussain Asghar and Maqsoodul Hassan.
Nisar Khan said the investigation team and a commission overseeing its work would keep the interior ministry informed about the progress of the probe and submit a report within the shortest possible time.
The interior minister said the government had adopted a clear stance on the November 3, 2007 acts of the former president and taken the parliament into confidence.
On that day Musharraf had put the constitution in abeyance, imposed a state of emergency, removed dozens of superior court judges and also allegedly detained them.
The interior minister said according to a judegment of the 14-member bench of the Supreme Court‚ only one person was responsible for the acts.
He regretted that the former ruler — under house arrest at his Islamabad home — was now trying to drag the institution of army into the affair.
“We have all the respect for the Pakistan Army,” Khan said, stressing that there would be no blot on the image of the army because of the initiation of treason case against Musharraf.
Article 6 of the constitution says any person who abrogates, subverts, suspends or holds in abeyance the constitution of Pakistan by use of force or any other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason, an offence punishable by death or life imprisonment.
Once charges are framed against the former president the federal government will set up, as required by the law, a special commission comprising three high court judges for the trial.
