Gilani to appeal contempt conviction

PAKISTAN: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will appeal against his conviction for refusing to reopen corruption investigations into the country’s president, his lawyer said Thursday.

“I will file the appeal after receiving the detailed order of the court,” Aitzaz Ahsan, who fought Gilani’s case for three months, told a news conference.

Gilani was found guilty of contempt over his refusal to obey an order to write to the authorities in Switzerland to ask them to restart corruption cases against his ally President Asif Ali Zardari.

One of the charges in the summary judgment issued by seven judges at the Supreme Court earlier Thursday was not mentioned when Gilani was indicted in February, Ahsan said. “I will raise this in my appeal. The appeal will go before a larger bench of the Supreme Court,” he said. AFP