Pakistan court throws out PM contempt appeal
Pakistan : Pakistan's top court threw out a last-ditch appeal from
embattled Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Friday, ordering him to
appear in court on Monday to face indictment for contempt.
The Supreme Court upheld a February 2 order for Gilani to appear for
the framing of contempt charges over the government's two-year refusal
to ask Swiss authorities to re-open graft cases against President Asif
Ali Zardari.
If convicted, Gilani faces up to six months in jail and being
disqualified from office in a case that many observers say will likely
build pressure on the government to force early elections within months.
“The appeal is dismissed,” said chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad
Chaudhry. Zardari and his late wife, prime minister Benazir Bhutto, were
suspected of using Swiss bank accounts to launder about $12 million in
alleged bribes paid by companies seeking customs inspection contracts in
Pakistan in the 1990s.
On Thursday, Chaudhry said the court would only drop the summons if
Gilani obeyed its order of writing to the Swiss authorities, asking them
to re-open the cases that dates back more than two years. The judge on
Friday again said he wanted a clear answer on whether the prime minister
would write the letter, telling his lawyer: “We are ready to give you 10
minutes to talk to the prime minister on the phone and let us know.”
“I have no mandate to do that,” replied Gilani's lawyer, Aitzaz
Ahsan. Speaking to reporters outside the court, Ahsan confirmed that the
prime minister would now appear in court on Monday.
The Swiss shelved the cases in 2008, when Zardari became head of
state, and a prosecutor in Switzerland has said it will be impossible to
re-open them as long as he remains head of state and is immune from
prosecution.
Gilani insists that Zardari has full immunity. Members of the
government accuse judges of over-stepping their reach and of trying to
bring down the prime minister and president, a year before the
administration would become the first in Pakistan to complete an elected
term. “No one wants unrest. We are exercising restraint,” Chaudhry told
the court.
“Tell the prime minister this is not in the interests of the country
(to defy the court order),” he told Ahsan.
The Pakistani court overturned in December 2009 a two-year political
amnesty that had frozen the allegations against Zardari and other
politicians.
Gilani himself appeared before the Supreme Court on January 19,
citing Zardari's immunity as explanation for his refusal to obey the
court's order.
Legal experts say that Gilani can only avoid being charged by lodging
a successful appeal, apologising or promising to write to the Swiss.
The president, so tainted by corruption allegations that his nickname
is “Mr 10 Percent”, has already spent 11 years in jail on charges
ranging from corruption to murder. AFP
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