Former Pakistan military ruler Pervez Musharraf has accused his successor as Army Chief, Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, of being the “principal offender” in a treason case filed against him by the government.
Former Pakistan military ruler Pervez Musharraf has accused his successor as Army Chief, Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, of being the “principal offender” in a treason case filed against him by the government.
Mr Musharraf said General Kayani became the Chief of Army Staff on November 27, 2007, but he did not revoke the Emergency.
“By not revoking the same, General Ka-yani is also a principal offender,” he alleged. He claimed he invoked the November 3, 2007 Emer-gency after holding consultations with General Kayani — then vice-chief of Army Staff — and the senior civilian and military hierarchy.
This is the first time that Mr Musharraf has directly dragged Gen. Kayani into the Emergency issue.
The former military ruler said in addition to Gen. Kayani he had consulted the senior military and civilian leadership, including the then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, before imposing the Emergency.
He alleged, “Shaukat Aziz, the then law minister Zahid Hamid, who is a member of the Cabinet in the present government, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and all the judges who had taken oath under the PCO (Provisional Constitutonal Order), all senior members of the armed forces in particular General Kayani, all chief ministers, all governors, all members of the federal and provincial cabinets, all members of the federal and provincial legislative assemblies, all senior federal and provincial bureaucrats are principal offenders or aides, abettors, collaborators and facilitators.”
He contended the Emergency was imposed on the advice of the then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz but its summary had “mysteriously” been removed from the official record by some “quarters concerned”. “After my exit from the presidency in 2008, intentionally some vested quarters removed the said summary of November 3, 2007 emergency from the record.”
According to the statement, the summary was made public in 2013 through social media. Gen. Musharraf asserted that on March 9, 2007, when he suspended the then Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry after sending a reference against him to the Supreme Judicial Council, the latter himself insisted to meet him as he was “frequent visitor and used to meet me (General Musharraf), all upon his choice and insistence.”
He alleged the former Chief Justice “in the name of judicial activism blatantly interfered with the matters of the executive and the legislature. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry had become singularly vindictive against myself after the events of March 9, 2007 when he had to face a reference before the Supreme Judicial Council that included allegations against him and his son but it was never adjudicated upon.”
General Musharraf claimed that he accepted the restoration of Justice Chaudhry by the Supreme Court “in good faith” but the situation became worse afterwards. He said that at time “unfortunately, some 61 terrorists were released in view of a court verdict, and these terrorists took refuge in Karachi, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan”, adding that “at many places the extremists and their relatives were challenging the writ of the government, brazenly fighting against the law-enforcement agencies.”
“Shaukat Aziz on November 3, 2007, through a letter captioned ‘national security situation’, apprised the magnitude of extremism, militancy and terrorism, which were going on in the country and the widespread perception of overstepping the limits of the judiciary,” he added. Mr Musharraf insisted Mr Aziz wanted imposition of emergency through the above mentioned letter, but “I plainly declined to do so and maintained that I could only act upon the advice of the then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz if he were to properly send me a summary in term of the Rules of Business. As a sequel to his letter dated November 3, 2007, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz sent me a summary directly by hand, through his staff, which was received by me (Gen Musharraf) in the President House.” According to the statement, “Article 6 of the Constitution was amended in the year 2010 vide the Eighteenth Amendment. The words and phrase ‘suspends’ and ‘holds in abeyance’ were added for the first time in this article by the Eighteenth Amendment” and it could not apply to the proclamation which he had issued in 2007. The former military ruler said he had told the JIT that “no case is made out against me as I acted upon the advice of the then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and his cabinet in imposing the emergency”.
