Pakistan Former President Musharraf Challenges Death Sentence

Former Pakistan president, Pervez Musharraf, has filed a petition in Lahore High Court, challenging the death sentence handed to him in a treason case earlier this month.

The petition, according to reports, highlighted that the “judgement contained a mix of anomalies and contradictory statements”

The ex-Pakistan army chief also claimed the special court “rapidly and hurriedly wrapped up the trial which was far from conclusion.”

A special court convicted and sentenced Musharraf to death on December 17 on charges of high treason and subverting the constitution – an unprecedented verdict in a country that has been ruled by its powerful military for roughly half of its 72-year history.

The detailed judgement, published days after Musharraf’s sentencing was announced, also called for the former president’s corpse to be displayed outside the parliament.

“And if [Musharraf is] found dead, his corpse be dragged to the D-Chowk [in front of Pakistan’s parliament building], Islamabad, Pakistan, and be hanged for three days,” Justice Waqar Seth, one of the three judges who presided over the case, wrote in his verdict.

The petition, filed on Friday, condemned Seth’s observation, highlighting that “the Honourable respective president of the special court has crossed all religious moral, civil and constitutional limits, while ruthlessly, irreligiously, unlawfully, unrealistically awarding a debilitating, humiliating, unprecedented and against the dignity of a person sentence.”

Last week, the government announced it would be filing a reference against Seth, who is also the chief justice of the Peshawar High Court, for his observations. The Federal Minister of Law and Justice, Farogh Naseem, termed the verdict “unprecedented and despicable.”