NEW DELHI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari approached the Supreme Court on Monday for the live streaming of proceedings about former Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto’s death sentence.
A nine-bench larger bench of the Supreme Court is all set to take up the reference on December 12, tomorrow, reported Dawn.
On April 2, 2011, the reference was filed on behalf of former president Asif Ali Zardari regarding the opinion on revisiting the death sentence that was awarded to Bhutto.
It is pertinent to mention that the former prime minister was awarded the death penalty 4-3 by a seven-member Supreme Court bench in February 1979, which was later implemented when Bhutto was hanged in April 1979.
In 1977, army chief, General Zia-ul Haq carried out a military coup following which the deposed prime minister was arrested on accusations of being the mastermind behind the murder of a political rival. Later, he was declared guilty and awarded the death penalty.
The PPP party chairman, today, again filed a petition for the live streaming of the case so that the whole world can hear it.
“The reference was filed by the then president of Pakistan namely Asif Ali Zardari, who is the father of the present applicant, hence, the applicant is the son of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and the grandson of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was the founder of the Pakistan People’s Party and a great leader of unprecedented scale, caliber, and character,” the plea said.
It stated that Bhutto was a “man who arose from the masses, he worked for them, he led them, gave his life for them and till this day lives in their hearts”.
The petition said that throughout his life, Bhutto wanted to uphold the rule of law. “His motto of ‘roti, kapra, and makan’ was a testament to his yearning that every man gets his fair due. It was a loud cry wechoing the chords of justice, that ‘Let Justice be done though the heavens may fall’,” it stated.
“This passion of the applicant’s grandfather, however, did not derail the irony that was to befall him. The spirit of justice that he so admired, was nowhere to be found when he himself was adorned with the noose of injustice,” it further added.
The plea also stated that Bhutto was charged, convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, sentenced, and executed on the testimony of an approver in the greatest miscarriage of justice that was ever to befall this country, according to Dawn.
Speaking to the media in Islamabad, Bilawal said that his “bare minimum” expectation from the SC was that it exposed all the individuals who were involved in the “crime”.
