Daily Times

KAMALIA: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari has challenged Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf to return to the country and face the courts if he is ‘brave enough’.

Addressing media persons in Kamalia on Friday, Zardari said, “Me and Benazir Bhutto were blamed [by Musharraf] for Murtaza Bhutto’s murder … history is full of such accusations”.

“The politics of accusations has been decade-long … if Musharraf is courageous enough, he must appear before courts,” he said in a reply to the military dictator who had accused him of plotting the assassination of Benazir and Murtaza Bhutto.

Zardari, reacting to allegations pertaining to Murtuza Bhutto’s murder, stated that Benazir had said that one Bhutto had been attacked and another was being targeted. “Politics of the past was based on levelling allegations against political opponents,” he added.

Continuing his criticism of the former president, Zardari questioned why were clips of Musharraf dancing in discos being circulated if he had gone abroad to seek treatment for his backache.

On September 18, Zardari had challenged the August 31 verdict passed by a Rawalpindi anti-terrorism court in Bhutto’s murder case.

In his petition, filed before the Lahore High Court, Zardari had sought death penalty for Musharraf and two senior police officers who were sentenced by the ATC to 17 years in prison in connection with Bhutto’s murder.

Referring to the tenure of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the former president said, “Sharif is incapable of ruling the country aptly.” Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, he added, has fled while leaving the country in economic crisis.

Published in Daily Times, September 23^rd 2017.