Summary Says whole army is upset and certainly, they wouldn’t like anything happening to their former chief.
ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) - Former president of Pakistan Gen (R) Pervez Musharraf has said that he leaves his treason trial issue to incumbent Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Gen Raheel Shairf.
Talking to a foreign news agency, Pervez Musharraf said the whole army is upset and certainly, they wouldn’t like anything happening to their ex-army chief.
"The army are extremely concerned about and supportive towards me," he said. He described the military as "the central gravity in Pakistan" and remarked this "may not be the case in other countries".
"The world should understand the dynamics of Pakistan - don t look at it through the eyes of the West. There has always been a conflict between the state and the constitution."
He also said: "In the past, the environment forced the army to take over, now they do not need to take over but they do have a role to play in the dynamics of the country."
"No politically-elected government has performed socio-economically; every time, Pakistan has gone down into an abyss socio-economically" he added.
On Sunday, former military ruler Pervez Musharraf denounced treason charges against him as a "vendetta" and said he had the backing of the country’s powerful army.
The 70-year-old told reporters the "whole army" was upset with the treason allegations, in his first comments to international media since he was put under house arrest in April.
The allegations relate to Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule in November 2007, and are the latest and potentially most serious in a flurry of criminal cases he has faced since returning to Pakistan in March.
The case puts the government on a possible collision course with the all-powerful army, which is reluctant to see its former chief suffer the indignity of being tried by a civilian court.
"I would say the whole army is upset. I have led the army from the front," he told reporters. "I have no doubt with the feedback that I received that the whole army is... totally with me on this issue."
An initial hearing in the case, being heard by a special tribunal, was halted on December 24 after explosives were found along the route Musharraf was to take to court.
The case is due to resume on January 1, but Musharraf said he had not yet decided whether or not he would attend.
"The way this tribunal was formed, which involved the prime minister and the ex-chief justice, this itself smacks a little bit of a vendetta," he said.
Musharraf’s lawyers have dismissed the charges as an attempt by the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who Musharraf ousted in a coup in 1999, to settle old scores through the courts.
