Pervez Musharraf moves Lahore HC against special court verdict awarding death penalty

The petition underlined that the “judgment contained a mix of anomalies and contradictory statements” and that the special court “rapidly and hurriedly wrapped up the trial which was far from conclusion”.

“The special court […] announced an award of capital punishment to the applicant without examining the accused under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code (power to examine the accused). The importance of examining the accused in a criminal trial is enormous and any lapse, failure or omission to fulfill this requirement adversely affects the prosecution case.

“A criminal trial cannot simply [be] complete without adhering to this mandatory legal requirement.”

It was mentioned in the petition that the special court “has not taken into consideration that no actions detrimental to national interest were taken by the applicant” as “no offence of high treason is made out from the evidence presented against him (Musharraf) before the special court”.

The petition also challenged special court verdict’s graphic paragraph 66 which read: “We direct the law enforcement agencies to strive their level best to apprehend the fugitive/convict (Musharraf) and to ensure that the punishment is inflicted as per law and if found dead, his corpse be dragged to the D-Chowk [in front of the Parliament House], Islamabad, Pakistan, and be hanged for three days”.

The plea states: “The Honourable respective president of the special court has crossed all religious moral, civil and constitutional limits, while ruthlessly, irreligiously, unlawfully, unrealistically awarding a debilitating, humiliating, unprecedented and against the dignity of a person sentence […] through para 66.”

Explained | Trial and death: The Pervez Musharraf story

The former military ruler was found guilty of high treason and was handed a death penalty on December 17, marking first such case in Pakistan.

Musharraf had declared a state of Emergency on November 3, 2007, suspending Pakistan’s Constitution. He also detained several judges, including the chief justice of Pakistan.

Following this, Pakistan’s InterServices Public Relations said the decision has been received with pain by Pakistan Armed Forces and the due legal process has been ignored.

In a statement, the DG ISPR Major Gen. Asif Ghafoor said, “The decision given by the “An ex-Army Chief, Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee and President of Pakistan, who has served the country for over 40 years, fought wars for the defence of the country can surely never be a traitor.”

(With inputs from agencies)