ISLAMABAD: The particular strategies of the legal wizards of the government and Gen Pervez Musharraf about the pace of his high treason trial are poles apart.
Musharraf’s squad is poised to drag proceedings by making the most of all the legal options including firing objections to the very judicial process, which, however, has been launched on the specific directions of the Supreme Court.
On the other hand, Attorney General Munir A Malik and Federal Law Secretary Barrister Zafarullah Khan have no doubt that the trial would not go on for a long time because it was a simple and not a complicated case.
“The way Musharraf violated the Constitution is amply documented as all the main illegal orders issued by him on November 3, 2007 were formally notified in the official gazette. These are absolutely incontrovertible,” a senior official said, representing the government opinion.
He said even if the Sindh High Court (SHC) ordered scrapping Musharraf’s name from the Exit Control List (ECL) that was placed on it on its order, the federal government would include it again.
The official said that it would then be up to the three-member special court comprising Justice Faisal Arab of the SHC, Justice Muhammad Yawar Ali of the Lahore High Court and Justice Syeda Tahira Safdar of the Balochistan High Court to remove from or keep his name on the ECL if he approached it with such a plea.
At the very outset, Musharraf’s legal whiz kids are going to challenge either in a high court or the Supreme Court the very constitution of the special court, slinging muck on the three judges forming part of it. They are going to accuse them of bias and prejudice.
However, when Ahmed Raza Kasuri, advocate, who is acting as an unofficial spokesman of Musharraf, was asked in a TV programme to name even a single judge or a panel of justices in whom they have confidence and who should try the former dictator, he was at a loss.
However, he claimed that the trial would open a Pandora’s Box but he did not elaborate how. It is quite obvious that not only Musharraf but his lawyers mainly hope that the army would come to his rescue and extricate him from this net.
On his part, Musharraf has preferred an absolute mum even after the approval of his bails in all the four criminal cases and institution of high treason proceedings.
In contrast, the prosecution will squarely depend on strong documentary evidence including gazette notifications of six extra-constitutional orders of Musharraf issued on and after November 3, 2007 that would be produced before the special court.
INTERNEWS
