[caption id="attachment_2084" align="alignnone" width="771"]
Image Credit - India Today[/caption]In the hope of getting some relief, Pakistan’s former dictator Pervez Musharraf challenged the death warrant given to him by a special court in a treason case.
Musharraf has been staying in Dubai since 2016 after Pakistan’s Supreme Court removed the travel ban imposed on him, thus allowing him to get medical treatment. The request for review was filed by him on Friday.
A special court found him guilty of violating the rules of Constitution by illegally declaring emergency rule when he was in power. The case had been lying pending since 2013 itself. Requesting the high court to walk back its decision, Musharraf said that the same was probably announced in a hurry and hence the order should be suspended.
Musharraf voiced his objection towards paragraph 66 of the judgment. A divergent note by Justice Waqar Ahmed Seth, paragraph 66 read: “As a necessary corollary to what has been observed we find the accused guilty as per charge. The convict be therefore hanged by his neck till he dies on each count as per charge. We direct the Law Enforcement Agencies to strive their level best to apprehend the fugitive/convict to ensure that the punishment is inflicted as per law and if found dead, his corpse be dragged to the D-Chowk, Islamabad, Pakistan and be hanged for 03 days."
Musharraf had been sentenced to death on December 17 in absentia in a major treason case for working in disharmony with the Constitution. Following the pronouncing of the sentence, Musharraf has become the first military ruler to be given capital punishment in Pakistan’s history. The former dictator, however, said that the punishment was a form of “personal vendetta” against him.
His party recently released a video in which Musharraf said,” there is no example of such a decision in which neither the defendant and nor his lawyer was given permission to say something in his defense."
He said that the court had been hearing his case in intervals between 2014 and 2019, and had rejected his request to record his statement in Dubai. Without taking names, Musharraf said that the ones who acted against him "are enjoying high positions and they misuse their office".
Back in 1999, Musharraf had seized power by overthrowing the elected government of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Declaring an Emergency in 2007, Musharraf had kept several key judges under house arrest in Islamabad as well as elsewhere in Pakistan.
In 2013, when Sharif was back in the office, Musharraf was accused by him of treason. He was, however, formally charged in 2014. Sharif had once again resumed office in 2013 but was ousted in 2017 on charges of corruption.
