Framing of charges against Sharif
put off

KARACHI, Nov 26 (Reuters, PTI) — Formal charges against deposed Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his brother and five others, were today delayed for one week to give the prosecution more time to prepare its case.

An anti-terrorism court judge agreed with a prosecution request to delay until December 4 the laying of the charges, expected to be criminal conspiracy, hijacking, kidnapping and attempted murder.

The prosecution told the court the delay was needed because Mr Sharif’s brother and two other former members of his government had been added to the list of accused yesterday.

Mr Sharif told reporters before the court proceedings that he was innocent and that the charges were politically motivated.

"General (Pervez) Musharraf has made me a victim of a personal vendetta and personal revenge. What he has done is something totally extra-constitutional," he said of the military leader who overthrew him last month.

"I think the plane issue has been dramatised to cover up the act (coup), otherwise it wouldn’t have provided him a justification to do so," Mr Sharif told reporters.

"There is no doubt that I did say very clearly and categorically that the plane should land at Karachi airport," Mr Sharif said. "Who ordered it to be diverted will come (out) in court."

Judge Rehmat Hussain Jafri also ruled that Mr Shahbaz Sharif, former Chief Minister of Punjab province, Saif-ur-Rehman, anti-corruption tsar in Mr Nawaz Sharif’s government, and Mr Sharif’s former Principal Secretary Saeed Mehdi be remanded into police custody for questioning until Tuesday.

The allegations stem from an alleged attempt on October 12 to divert a plane bringing General Musharraf to Karachi from Sri Lanka. Hours later, General Musharraf overthrew Mr Sharif.

Mr Nawaz Sharif, who was arrested with three other former aides or government officials last week, has said he is innocent and called for an open and fair trial. A conviction for hijacking could bring a death penalty.

Also present at the trial were observers from the USA and two European Union embassies.

Pakistan has executed a former Prime Minister, hanging Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in April 1979 during the regime of the last military ruler, General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, on a disputed conviction of conspiring to commit political murder.

Mr Sharif and the others were brought to the court in armoured vehicles amid very tight security, with police using batons to beat back a protest staged by backers of Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League Party, who shouted slogans supporting the deposed Prime Minister.

It was the first time Mr Sharif had seen his brother since before the coup, and the two embraced and kissed inside the courtroom.

"This is the first time I’ve seen him in 41 days," said Mr Nawaz Sharif, who also kissed a visibly disturbed aide Saif-ur-Rehman.

The other accused are former Sharif adviser Ghous Ali Shah, former Pakistan international Airlines Chairman Shahid Khakan Abbasi and former Sindh province police chief Rana Maqbool.

Former Civil Aviation Authority Chief Aminullah Chaudhry was also accused last week along with Mr Sharif, but officials say he offered to testify against Mr Sharif and no longer faces charges.

Meanwhile, the defence team for Mr Sharif and the co-accused led by the country’s top criminal lawyer Ejas Batalvi assisted by former Law Minister Khalid Anwar and Justice Aftab Farrukh is confident that it could "rip apart" the prosecution case by exposing "gaping holes" in the FIR and evidence, a PTI report from Islamabad said.

The prosecution, led by little-known Karachi lawyer Ilyas Khan, is also confident that it has "solid evidence to send another Pakistani Prime Minister to the gallows.

Mr Nawaz Sharif had yesterday alleged that the military regime was trying to break him psychologically and finish him politically but asserted that the "conspiracy" would not succeed.

A "conspiracy" is being hatched by the military government "to finish me politically," Mr Sharif told his lawyers and party leaders when he was produced before a Karachi Magistrate on Thursday to hear the recording of prosecution witnesses in the plane hijacking case, according to leading Urdu Daily ‘Nawa-e-Waqt’.

The former premier alleged that the authorities were trying to break him psychologically and said that is why "I have been kept in a small cage-like room which is full of mosquitoes and there isn’t even clean water to drink."

He, however, asserted that "they (authorities) would not succeed in their conspiracy", claiming that people were with him and that they would finally decide who is right.

He said he had mosquito bite marks all over his body and that he had not been provided newspapers or television to know about happenings in the outside world.

The deposed Prime Minister's brother Shahbaz Sharif told newspersons that all these five weeks he had never been told why he was kept in detention. "I have been kept in a very dirty room where dirty water keeps on seeping," he was quoted as saying by the Urdu services of the BBC.