Sharif stirs call for Musharraf to be hanged

“Now people have given a new judgement for you … they want you to be held accountable,” he said in the early hours of Saturday.

The crowd, officially estimated at up to 20,000, chanted “hang Musharraf” as it listened to the two-time former prime minister’s fiery speech.

“Is hanging only for politicians?” asked Sharif, referring to former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, hanged by a military dictator in 1979.

“These blood-sucking dictators must be held accountable.”

The demonstration, a few hundred metres from the presidency and parliament buildings, marked the climax of an almost week-long rolling protest across the country led by lawyers, though by the end they were easily outnumbered by Sharif party activists.

The United States and other Western allies fear prolonged political instability in the turbulent nuclear-armed Muslim nation will play into the hands of Islamist militants and undermine the US-led campaign against terrorism.

Sharif has called for Musharraf to be tried for treason for tearing up the constitution during a brief spell of emergency rule late last year and for the coup nearly nine years ago.

Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s husband and political successor, is trying to take away Musharraf’s powers through changes to the constitution that will take months to pass, and the PPP is worried that Sharif is making more political capital by seeking Musharraf’s humiliation.