Army should clear its position on Musharraf's statement: Khursheed Shah
The opposition leader says Musharraf tried to be smart while claiming to have army’s support.
ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) - Opposition leader Syed Khursheed Shah urged army to explain its position on Pervez Musharraf statement, contending that silence can be misconstrued as consent.
Speaking to newsmen after Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting on Monday, Shah said that Pervez Musharraf tried to be smart while claiming to have army’s support in treason case.
“If army is not with Musharraf, it should rebuff his statement,” he asserted.
Earlier, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari stated that defending former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf in treason case is also‘treason’.
On the other hand, former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf, while talking to a foreign news agency on Monday, said that he was leaving his treason trial issue to incumbent Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), Gen Raheel Shairf.
"I would say the whole army is upset. Certainly, they wouldn’t like anything happening to their ex-army chief.
In the same breath he also made it clear that army was not his last hope.
"Though the army chief has the final word but the top brass always goes through due consultations before an important decision is taken. Let’s see what the COAS does in this case”, said he.
On Sunday, 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.
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.
