SC upholds Pervez Musharraf’s death sentence in treason case

The Supreme Court upheld on Wednesday former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s death sentence in a high treason case.

Musharraf died on February 5, 2023 at a hospital in Dubai after a prolonged illness.

A four-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, and comprising Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Athar Minallah, and Justice Aminuddin Khan, announced the verdict after taking up petitions of ex-COAS, and Bar Councils.

“The impugned passed on January 13, 2020 by the Lahore High Court (LHC) […] is not sustainable and accordingly set aside,” the chief justice said.

Background

A Special court on December 17, 2019, sentenced Musharraf to death in high treason case. Justice Nazar Akbar had opposed the verdict of sentencing him to death and cleared him of the accusations while Justice Waqar Seth and Justice Shahid Karim handed him the death penalty.

In its order in 2022, a three-member bench of the LHC, headed by Justice Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, and comprising Justice Muhammad Masood Jahangir, and Justice Ameer Bhatti, declared; “That the Special Court was established without an iota of doubt that very basis of initiation of proceedings against the petitioner/ General Pervez Musharraf (retd), since its inception to the culmination are beyond the constitutional mandate, ultra vires, coram-non-judice, unlawful, hence, any superstructure raised over it shall fall to ground.”

It further said; “Trial in absentia is declared as illegal, unconstitutional being repugnant to the injunctions of Islam, as well as, Article 2-A, 8 and 10-A of the Constitution.”