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Journalism of Courage
ISLAMABAD, FEB 2: Nadeem Akbar, an air traffic controller at Karachi Quaid-e-Azam International Airport, testifying Wednesday at the trial of ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said he was given an order last October to block the runway at the Karachi airport and he thought that this was because the aircraft had been hijacked.
Akbar said he thought the October 12 order was linked to a possible hijacking. Akbar said he received the order as a Pakistan International Airlines plane was approaching the Karachi airport on a flight from Sri Lanka. The plane was carrying 188 passengers, including Gen Pervez Musharraf, the army chief who later overthrew Sharif. After receiving the order from the head of Pakistan’s civil aviation, Akbar told three fire engines parked across the runway to prevent any planes from landing. He was then told to switch off the runway lights. Akbar said he was not given an explanation for the order, but said such measures were usually imposed "only in cases of hijackings."
In 1998, a hijacked PIA Fokker plane flew over Karachi to Hyderabad and such standard procedures were also adopted then. Sharif is charged with hijacking, attempted murder, kidnapping and terrorism. Three of the charges carry either the death penalty or life in prison. The trial began a week ago, and resumed Wednesday after a four-day recess. The prosecution plans to call dozens of witnesses in the case, and the trial is expected to last several weeks. The plane carrying the general was allowed to land only after military officers entered the air traffic control tower. After circling the Karachi airport, the plane had only a few minutes of fuel remaining.
Sharif tried to sack Musharraf while he was out of the country in October. But as Musharraf flew back to Pakistan he spoke to senior army officers in Karachi and within hours of landing had taken over the country in a bloodless coup.
Sharif was immediately detained and accused of trying to stop Musharraf’s plane from landing in Pakistan. Defence lawyers have been trying to prove Musharraf himself was instructing the pilot that night and that Sharif only tried to stop the plane landing after the army had launched a coup. The prosecution argue Musharraf took control of the country after Sharif tried to stop his plane landing and endangered the life of the 198 passengers and crew on board.
Nadeem Akbar told the court he was ordered to block the runway at 7.16 pm on the night of the coup to stop the commercial Pakistan International Airlines jet carrying Musharraf from landing. Then the army took control of the airport and General Iftikhar Ali Khan entered the air traffic control tower and ordered flight PK 805 be instructed to land at Karachi, he said.
Akbar said that the general spoke to Musharraf over the radio, telling the army chief he had been sacked and was due to be replaced by military intelligence chief General Khawaja Ziauddin. Another prosecution witness, Saeed Aqueel Ahmed, the general manager of air traffic systems at the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), said he was told by the head of the CAA to divert the plane and stop it landing at Karachi. Under cross-examination Ahmed said the pilot did not give an indication of a problem on board and did not use the emergency code used during a hijacking or switch to an emergency radio frequency. "The pilot never put on the hijacking code or the emergency frequency," he said.
