Islamabad (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Pakistan’s High Court has granted bail of 50,000 rupees (around 800 dollars) to Javed Hashmi, the ex-acting president of a Pakistan Muslim League faction and a man who is still held to be the main Muslim leader opposing President Pervez Musharraf. He is loyal to the former exiled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who was ousted in the coup.
Hashmi was arrested in 2003 for writing a letter that denounced corruption among high-ranking army officials and called for a judicial inquiry into the management of the mini-war with India over Kashmir in 1999, when the army was led by Musharraf. The letter also criticized Musharraf for supporting the United States in the war in Afghanistan and called for a parliamentary debate on his seizing power in 1999. In 2004, Hashmi was condemned to 23 years in prison for inciting mutiny in the army, forgery and defamation, in a trial held behind closed doors that many foreign states claimed “lacked transparency”. He is being detained in Lahore pending the appeal sentence. Now he may leave if he gets bail for another trial, less serious, for aggression against public officials. Hashmi is head of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, which campaigns for the restoration of the rule of law after the coup in 1999.
Chief Justice Iftikar Chaudhry, who presided over the Court, said: “If periodic remissions are counted, Hashmi has already served his entire sentence” and “even if remissions are not allowed to him, he has nearly served the sentence, counting the length of his imprisonment.”
Chaudhry was reinstated to the office of Chief Justice after the same Supreme Court ruled that the accusations of abuse of office, which resulted in his suspension, were unfounded.
The previous day, on 1 August, the ex-prime minister Sharif petitioned the court seeking an order to stop the government from obstructing his return to Pakistan after seven years of exile.
Musharraf is finding himself increasingly under fire and public opinion is also challenging the army assault on the Red Mosque, which claimed at least 102 victims on 12 July.
Meanwhile the former premier Benazir Bhutto has confirmed that she will return to the country for upcoming elections slated for early 2008 at the latest, and that that her Pakistan People's Party will participate in the polls. Bhutto, who has been in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai since 1998 due to corruption charges, recently met in secret with Musharraf to discuss a possible political alliance. But she reiterated that the president must first renounce the position of head of the Armed Forces, held to be incompatible with the office of president.
