ISLAMABAD: The federal government of Pakistan will resist, legally and in the court of law, the accused former General Pervez Musharraf’s bid to drag the institution of Pakistan Army in his high treason case.
The recent move of the former dictator to get several retired generals, including former army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, involved in the high treason case as alleged “abettors” is seen as a desperate effort by Musharraf to escape the trial by scandalising the case and giving it hype.
The federal government’s prosecutor in Musharraf’s high treason case and senior SC lawyer, Akram Sheikh, insists that it is the discretion of the federal government to book one or more persons under the Article 6 of the Constitution.
Former Chief Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui also endorses the federal government’s right to proceed against Musharraf alone.
“It is only the federal government that has the exclusive constitutional and legal right to decide whom to prosecute under Article 6 of the Constitution,” Justice Siddiqui said.
Akram Sheikh says that merely on the wishes and whims of Musharraf and his defence team, the retired generals, including General Kayani, could not be summoned to stand in the witness box.
Musharraf will have to produce concrete evidence about those whom he accuses as his “abettors”. Or someone should come forward and say that he had advised Musharraf to abrogate the Constitution.
INTERNEWS
