Pakistan minister quits over 'historic wrong'

Islamabad: Law Minister Babar Awan has resigned to clear the way for him to appear as government counsel before the Supreme Court after the president ordered a review of the controversial death sentence passed in 1979 against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Awan presented his resignation to a three-judge bench as it took up the reference sent by President Asif Ali Zardari last week for rectifying what he has called "the historic wrong of judicial murder" of the Pakistan People's Party founder and former prime minister.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, adjourned the hearing until today.

"We are taking the issue very seriously and will give it due importance," the chief justice observed. The bench includes Justice Mohammad Sair Ali Justice Ghulam Rabbani.

Judicial murder

Awan, a lawyer by profession, told the media later that the Pakistan Bar Council had restored his licence after he quit the cabinet post in compliance with judicial requirement.

The hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during the regime of military dictator Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq is widely termed in political and legal circles and civil society as "judicial murder" of one of the most popular leaders of the country.

The president's reference contends that the late PPP founder was not given justice and that the judiciary should correct this.

In a speech on the 32nd anniversary of the death of the PPP founder on April 4, Zardari said it was the obligation of the judiciary to correct the wrong committed in 1979 and wash away the stigma.