Islamabad: The Pakistan government announced on Sunday it would put former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason for imposing emergency rule in the country in November 2007.
“Following the judgment of the Supreme Court and a report submitted by an inquiry committee, it has been decided to start proceedings against General Pervez Musharraf (for treason) under Article 6 of the Constitution,” Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told a televised news conference.
“It is happening for the first time in the history of Pakistan and the decision has been taken in the national interest,” the minister said.
The minister said the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry would receive on Monday a letter from the government requesting the setting-up of a tribunal of three high court judges to start proceedings against Musharraf for treason. The government would also announce a special prosecutor on Monday.
Nisar Khan said that Musharraf had committed crimes against the people of Pakistan and against the constitution. He said that nobody, not even the prime minister, could offer him pardon.
Musharraf, who returned to Pakistan from self-exile in March, has been granted bail in all four criminal cases registered against him in his absence from the country and his legal team says he is a free citizen now.
The Islamabad administration has already reportedly withdrawn an order by which his farmhouse residence in the suburbs of the capital was declared a sub-jail in mid-April following his arrest.
Musharraf was barred from contesting the general election held in May, which was won by the party of current Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose second government he had overthrown in a coup in October 1999 and went on to rule the country until he stepped down in August 2008.
The cases in which he is accused are related to the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the 2006 killing of Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, and the death of a cleric during an army operation in 2007 to oust militants from the Red Mosque in Islamabad.
The fourth case pertains to the alleged detention of superior courts judges by him after the emergency clampdown in 2007.
The interior ministry had barred Mushrraf from leaving the country by placing his name on its exit control list.
Last week, the former president approached a court to direct the government to let him leave the country to visit his sick mother in Dubai. The court is expected to come to a decision on his application in the coming days.
