‘We expect justice,’ says Bilawal ahead of hearing on case against Zulfikar

Peshawar: Pakistan People’s Party chairman and ex-foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Sunday said his party expected “justice” to be served in a case on revisiting the controversial death sentence given to its founder and former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

In March 1978, a four-member bench of Lahore High Court had given the death sentence to Bhutto, which was later challenged in the Supreme Court.

In a four to three split verdict, a seven-judge apex court bench upheld the sentence during the military regime of the then-army chief Gen Ziaul Haq in March 1979.

“We hope that the entire world will be told why the leader of the Muslim world was hanged,” Bilawal said while addressing a convention of the PPP workers in Kohat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“We had this hope from Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa that he would avail the opportunity to wash the blood off from his institutions and his court that was [ ] involved and an enabler in this tragedy.

“He should correct the constitutional and legal mistakes which were made [by the apex court],” he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

His comments came ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on the 12-year-old presidential case on revisiting the death sentence given to Bhutto.

A nine-member larger bench of the apex court will commence on Tuesday the long-pending presidential case seeking to revisit the death sentence given to Bhutto.

The case was filed on behalf of former president Asif Ali Zardari on April 2, 2011, to seek an opinion on revisiting the death sentence given to the former premier under the Supreme Court’s advisory jurisdiction.

Bilawal said the court would also have to point out those involved as well as the abettors, from ex-military dictator Ziaul Haq to the judges, lawyers and politicians involved.
“We expect justice,” Bilawal said.

On the Feb 8 general elections, he said political parties were contesting the polls only to solve their “personal problems”.

“I am fighting this election to solve your problems,” he added. “If someone is fighting elections it is so that that he can get out of prison while the other is contesting elections to save himself from prison,” he said.