ISLAMABAD: The opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz Group) on Wednesday moved an adjournment motion in the National Assembly against ‘concession of safe passage’ to former President Pervez Musharraf.
Hanif Abbasi, who moved the motion, told newsmen, “We have heard President Asif Ali Zardari’s statement that at the time Musharraf decided to leave office some important powers had prevailed upon the government to provide safe passage to Musharraf. This we think is a compromise on Pakistan’s sovereignty. We must debate the issue in the Parliament.”
Even as the opposition tabled the motion, presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar was contradicting reports in a section of the press that Zardari had confirmed holding negotiations with so-called international guarantors to give indemnity to the former dictator.
During a iftar-cum-dinner he held for the journalists in Islamabad on Monday the president had in an informal chat remarked that national political leaders and parties had held negotiations among themselves to chase Musharraf out of office and restore presidency to the democratic forces.
“In the chat with journalists there was no mention of negotiations with so-called national or international guarantors to give immunity to Musharraf,” Babar said.
He said that the noise and din raised over the alleged remarks is wrongly attributed to the president and was part of the campaign to discredit Zardari for anything and everything that goes wrong.
Adding to the confusion, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said at an iftar party at Prime Minister’s House on Wednesday “only Parliament is sovereign enough to decide the fate of Musharraf.”
He said the opposition was demanding to invoke Article 6 of the Constitution which suggests an attempt to subvert the Constitution and that is tantamount to ‘high treason.’
