Farooq Naeem—AFP
Lawyer for Lal Masjid says latest judgment will exert pressure on government to seek former president’s extradition from Dubai.
A court trying former president Pervez Musharraf over a deadly raid on Islamabad’s radical Lal Masjid passed an order on Saturday confiscating his property, a lawyer said.
The former Army chief, who left Pakistan for Dubai in March for what was described as urgent medical treatment, is facing a string of court cases connected to his 1999 to 2008 rule. Lower court judge Pervaiz Qadir Memon passed the order Saturday in a case over the death of radical cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of more than 100 people killed when troops stormed the Lal Masjid in 2007.
“The court… today passed an order that his property be confiscated,” a lawyer for the Lal Masjid, Tariq Asad, told AFP. “Our next move will be to put pressure on the interior ministry to bring Musharraf back home so he can face all cases against him,” he added.
A special court in July, which is trying Musharraf for treason, issued a similar order in July but little has resulted from that verdict. “Today’s court order will help mount pressure on the government” to take action, Asad said.
Musharraf ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup in 1999. He resigned in 2008 to avoid possible impeachment and went into exile overseas. He returned in 2013 in an attempt to contest elections but was barred from taking part in the polls and from leaving the country while facing a barrage of legal cases. The travel ban was lifted in March.
In January this year Musharraf was acquitted over the 2006 killing of a Baloch rebel leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti. But four cases against him remain—one accusing him of treason for imposing emergency rule, as well as those alleging the unlawful dismissal of judges, the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and the deadly raid on the Lal Masjid.