The conviction for treason is because he suspended the constitutional order and imposed a state of emergency between November 3 and February 15, 2007
A Pakistani court has sentenced to death on Tuesday in the absence of former coup president Pervez Musharraf for the crime of treason, after suspending the constitutional order in 2007, in the first case of this type in Pakistan, a country that has ruled half of his History by dictators.
“A special court formed by three judges sentenced Musharraf to Islamabad to death. The court determined that he committed treason, ” said Azhar Siddique, a lawyer for the convict, who has lived abroad for years.
The conviction for treason is because he suspended the constitutional order and imposed a state of emergency between November 3 and February 15, 2007, according to his lawyer.
“We now have the right to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court,” Siddique added. The court, which decided by two votes to one the sentence, will issue a detailed verdict in 48 hours.
The former 76-year-old former general of the Pakistani Army is in Dubai, where he travelled in March 2016 alleging medical problems with the promise of returning in “four to six weeks,” and has since refused to return to Pakistan.
He did not protect the life of Benazir Bhutto
In addition to this case, the former military officer faces several accusations, such as not having protected the life of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, murdered in 2007.
The case for treason against the military began in 2013 accused of imposing the state of emergency and decreeing the arrest of dozens of judges by the Government of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, precisely the president whom Musharraf threw out of power in a coup d’etat in 1999.
Democracy is the best revenge. Jiye Bhutto pic.twitter.com/L4wLEjUJTl
— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) December 17, 2019
The Sharif Executive banned after his return to power in 2013 the departure of the country from Musharraf because of the complaint of high treason, a ban that the Supreme Court lifted in 2016.
The military held the presidency of the country between 2001 and 2008, the year he was forced to leave the country.
The reactions to his sentence have not been long in coming. “Democracy is the best revenge,” said Bilawal Bhutto, son of Benazir, whose murder continues unpunished. Musharraf argues that judicial charges are a ‘vendetta’ policy.