Musharraf trial: Court rejects plea for immunity

'He cannot be tried as per the Constitution and he enjoyed immunity,' says local lawyer Akhtar Shah.

RAWALPINDI: The concept of presidential immunity can take quirky forms. On behalf of a despot, one can try to invoke the law giving the reason that he was president when Benazir Bhutto was murdered. But the judge may not agree with the plea. Anti-terrorism court on Tuesday rejected an application filed by a lawyer praying to the court that the trial of the former president Pervez Musharraf in Benazir Bhutto’s murder case may be stopped. When the hearing started at the court of special judge Chaudhry Habibur Rahman, local lawyer Akhtar Shah urged the court to make him party in the case as he wanted to argue on Article 248 of the Constitution. “Pervez Musharraf was a president at the time of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and he cannot be tried as per the Constitution and he enjoyed immunity,” he took the plea.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2013.