Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who was sentenced to death for high treason by a court on December 17, has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court challenging the verdict, media reported on Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th December, 2019) Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who was sentenced to death for high treason by a court on December 17, has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court challenging the verdict, media reported on Friday.
According to the Geo News broadcaster, advocate Azhar Siddique filed the petition on Musharraf's behalf. The former president was sentenced to death on charges of high treason relating to his imposition of a state of emergency in the Asian country in 2007.
"The hastily announced judgment is emanating from a prosecution case which suffers, for all intents and purposes from an admitted, noticeable and unexplained delay of over five years from the date of the alleged offence and initiation of proceeding," the petition read, as quoted by the broadcaster.
Musharraf's petition also challenges the wording of the court's verdict. Paragraph 66 of the verdict called for Musharraf's corpse to be hung on public display for three days in Islamabad once the former president had been executed.
"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," the petition read, as quoted by the broadcaster.
The 86-page petition also challenged the severity of the sentence. While admitting that Musharraf's decision to call a state of emergency was illegal, the petition stated that it cannot be considered treason, given that it did not subvert or abrogate the Pakistani constitution.
Musharraf served as Pakistan's president from 2001 to 2008 and the criminal investigation against him was launched in 2013. In March 2016, Musharraf was allowed to leave the Asian country on medical grounds, and traveled to the United Arab Emirates for treatment. He has not since returned to Pakistan.
