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 9th, 2013.
@LuvDat!:
You missed one more enemy of Musharraf---it is the judiciary. The case is registered by the orders of Islamabad High Court. Now the courts are doing police job as well. Pakistan ka Allah hi hafiz hai.
@Abid P. Khan: You know who are his enemies? The ruthless extremists. The Baloch Sheikhdom dreamers. Certain NS supporters who did not even came to the airport to receive NS upon his return from exile. The sympathizer of Lal Masjid fundamentalist and all who had anti-state support. All those countries who don't want to see Pak come out of ruthless fundmentalist culture.
@lawyer Akhtar Shah: “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." . So many cases against Musharraf have yet not been entertained. His next door neighbour as a child in Nazimabad No 3, Hamdard Dawakhana Herb/Medicinal Garden. He developed a deep dislike for the smell of Gul qaNd and Khamira Gao Zabaan which hung in the air of the whole environs. . The court has to investigate the possibility of him being involved somehow in the murder of Hakim Saeed? Even if it is a wild goose chase that possibility should not be ruled out.