Daily Times

The Supreme Court is expected to conclude its proceedings on a presidential reference seeking a review of the SC’s 1979 verdict in the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto case by next Monday.

A nine-member larger bench, led by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJ) Qazi Faez Isa, resumed hearing the reference on Wednesday and deliberated on various aspects of the Bhutto case for over six hours. The Lahore High Court (LHC) had sentenced former prime minister Bhutto to death on March 18, 1978, for ordering the assassination of Ahmed Reza Kasuri, one of the founding members of the PPP.

The Supreme Court, with a majority vote of 4 to 3, upheld the LHC verdict on February 6, 1979. The PPP founder was executed on April 4 of the same year. During the PPP’s last rule between 2008 and 2013, former president Asif Ali Zardari sent the reference to the apex court, requesting an opinion after analyzing the SC’s and the LHC judgments in the ZAB case based on the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

During Wednesday’s proceedings, one of the court’s amici, former judge Manzoor Ahmed Malik, informed the court that the approver in the case, Masood Mahmood, had testified that Bhutto ordered him to murder Kasuri. “The statement of the second witness was ignored because it contradicted the claim made by the approver, Masood Mahmood,” he said. CJ Isa asked for the pardon notification for the approver. “Mahmood also belongs to Kasur district. Did the person who ordered the murder not know that Masood and Ahmed Raza Kasuri both hail from the same area? Did the Supreme Court and the High Court assess this aspect?”.