Letter a trap for president says Awan

Consenting to write a letter to Swiss authorities is a means to trap President Asif Ali Zardari, said Senator Babar Awan in his reaction to the government’s assent to initiate the process.

The senator, who has fallen out of favour of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman, also put forward his suspicions about the move, questioning where the decision had been made. Awan said the decision to not write a letter was taken by central executive committee (CEC) of the party. “We need to know where the decision to write the letter was made,” he said, adding that there was no meeting of the CEC for this.

The path of writing this letter leads to the trial of the graves of the ‘shaheeds,’ Awan said while speaking to host Javed Chaudhry in the Express News talk show ‘Kal Tak.’

Awan stressed that, according to Swiss rules, if the attorney general writes the letter, the trials will begin once again.

People who want the letter to be written want a media trial of the PPP, which has been happening since 1997, he added. I have always been against writing a letter and still hold this stance because writing the letter is tantamount to a trial of the ‘shaheeds,’ he said, referring to former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Awan recalled that it was Farooq H Naek, an advocate of writing the letter, who that had also said that the National Reconciliation Order should not be defended in the first place. He added that now the PPP cannot go back from what it has accepted in the court today.

If the court now wants certain changes in the letter, the party will not be able to refuse, he said. Awan also said that the party’s assent also meant that, hereon in, it cannot blame the court for anything.

Writing the letter is against article 248 of the Constitution, Awan reiterated.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2012.