Former president of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf has been sentenced to death for high treason following a trial in absentia.
General Musharraf, who was indicted for treason in 2013, has lived in Dubai since 2016, where he is receiving medical treatment. The three-member court in Pakistani capital Islamabad found the general guilty of overruling the country’s constitution by a majority of two to one.
Pervez Musharraf seized power from incumbent Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, for whom the general had acted as chief of staff, in a military coup in 1999; following a drop in popularity for Sharif after a series of controversial legislative reforms and an abortive attempt to annexe territory in Kashmir. In March 2007 the general triggered protests around Pakistan by suspending his chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry; the tumultuous few months that followed saw the general’s popularity fall dramatically. In November 2007 Musharraf declared emergency rule, suspended Pakistan’s constitution – this would trigger his later treason charges – and fired Chaudhry. General Musharraf served as president of Pakistan until 2008, when he resigned in the face of an impeachment inquiry.
The general left Pakistan following his resignation, but returned in 2013 to run for election again. Due to the circumstances of his resignation and ensuing legal issues, he was prohibited from standing; and instead faced a number of court actions, including the fallout from a 2010 United Nations inquiry which had found General Musharraf and his government responsible for failing to provide adequate protection for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was murdered in 2007.
During his time in office, General Musharraf was subject to intensive domestic criticism over his support for the USA’s ‘war on terror’, while NATO was frequently critical of what it perceived to be a failure on the general’s part to address rising extremism in Pakistan – an issue which arose again in 2011, when it was found that al-Quaeda leader Osama Bin Laden had been living in Pakistan; although the general insisted he had not been aware of this.
