Zia-ul-Haq imposed martial law in Pakistan on July 5, 1977. Prime Minister Z.A Bhutto and all his cabinet ministers were arrested and assemblies dissolved. The constitution was suspended and civil rights set aside. The validity of martial law was challenged in the Supreme Court which validated it on November 10, 1977, under the doctrine of necessity.
Bhutto was released on July 29,1977, but was again arrested on September 3, 1977, on the charge of authorizing the murder of Nawab Mohammad Ahmad Khan Kasuri-a political opponent. However, when Justice K.M.A. Samdani of the Lahore High Court found the evidence “contradictory and incomplete” and Bhutto was released on September 13, 1977, Zia removed Justice Samdani from his post. Three days later on the night of September 16, 1977, army commandos “climbed the walls of “Al-Murtaza” in Larkana, knocked out all the guards and arrested Bhutto.
Bhutto’s trial began on October 24, 1977, and he was arraigned before the High Court of Lahore instead of a lower court, thus depriving him of one level of appeal. Five new judges were appointed, headed by Acting Chief Justice of Lahore High Court Molvi Mushtaq Hussain who was known to harbour a personal grudge against Bhutto. Mushtaq was a Zia appointee and hailed from his hometown Jullandhar.
Bhutto was charged with murder and abetment. The DG Federal Security Force (FSF) Masood Mahmood, testified against Bhutto. He claimed Bhutto had ordered Kasuri’s assassination and that four members of the Federal Security Force had organized the ambush on Bhutto’s orders. The four alleged assassins were arrested and later confessed. They were brought into court as “co-accused” but one of them recanted his testimony, declaring that it had been extracted from him under torture. The following day, the witness was not present in court and the prosecution claimed that he had suddenly “fallen ill”.
When Bhutto began his testimony on 25th January 1978, Chief Justice Maulvi Mushtaq closed the courtroom to all observers. Bhutto demanded a retrial, accusing the Chief Justice of bias. The court refused his demand.
On 18 March 1978, Bhutto was sentenced to death.
In May 1978, Begum Nusrat Bhutto filed an appeal before the Supreme Court. The courageously independent Chief Justice of Pakistan Yaqub Ali Khan was forced to retire by the 22nd July but only three days before his forced retirement, he admitted Begum Nusrat Bhutto’s petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan challenging the constitutionality of her husband’s detention. A nine-member bench was constituted to hear the appeal. The bench was headed by justice Anwar-ul-Haq who was very close to Zia. He had no legal training and had entered the judicial service through its backdoor as an administrator, but had the distinction of being a friend of the General and hailed from the same hometown of Jullandhar.
They both realized that out of the nine judges, five were inclined to overturn the verdict of Lahore High Court, hence, the case was adjourned till the end of July 1978, so that one of the judges namely Qaisar Khan would retire. Another one, namely Justice Waheeduddin Ahmad fell ill. The expected majority (in Bhutto’s favour) was reduced to the minority and the decision taken by the Lahore High Court was upheld by 4:3. The three justices who voted for Bhutto’s acquittal were Justice Dorab Patel of Balochistan, Justice Safdar Shah of KPK, and Justice Mohammed Halim of Sindh as they could not find any direct evidence for the conspiracy to murder. The four judges who awarded death sentence to Bhutto were all from Punjab.The review petition was dismissed on 24th March 1979 and Bhutto was hanged on April 4, 1979, despite hundreds of clemency appeals by many heads of state from all over the world.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark having witnessed the trial later wrote:
“the prosecution’s case was based entirely on several witnesses who were detained until they confessed, who changed and expanded their confessions and testimony with each reiteration, who contradicted themselves and each other, who, except for Masood Mahmood… were relating what others said, whose testimony led to four different theories of what happened, absolutely uncorroborated by an eyewitness, direct evidence, or physical evidence.”
Never before in the judicial history of the country, any abettor was awarded capital punishment especially when there was a split decision; three judges acquitted Bhutto against four who held him guilty. Moreover, the case was all based on circumstantial evidence and statements of approvers. There were no witnesses and no proof of Bhutto’s direct involvement. Despite that, he was hanged. Former federal Secretary Roedad Khan said that Zia told him that “it is his neck or mine.”
Bhutto’s dead body was flown to Larkana overnight in a C-130 aircraft and hurriedly buried. Tens of thousands wanted to see the face of dead Bhutto. The face was there but almost none to have the last sight. Almost nine years later, on 17 August 1988, Zia-ul-Haq was burnt to death in an air crash.
Published in Daily Times, April 5th 2018.