ISLAMABAD: After much deliberation on a presidential reference filed in 2011, the Supreme Court is going to announce its opinion on the trial, sentence, and execution — by the apex court — of the late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on Wednesday (tomorrow).
On Monday, a 9-member bench of the top court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, reserved its opinion on the 2011 presidential reference seeking to revisit the sentence and execution of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) founder and former premier Bhutto.
Bhutto had been hanged to death on April 4, 1979, following a verdict of the Supreme Court in a murder case that his party termed as judicial murder.
After the filing of a presidential reference, an 11-member larger bench of the apex court, conducted five hearings in the presidential reference.
In the previous hearing, Raza Rabbani, representing Sanam Bhutto, Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari, and Aseefa Bhutto Zardari, contended that the trial of the PPP founder was not transparent and that Bhutto was not nominated in any first information reports (FIRs) of the murder case.
Additional Attorney General Chaudhry Aamir Reman submitted that the re-investigation of the murder charge on Bhutto was illegal and against the rules of the trial but acknowledged violations and injustice, hinting at possible government intervention in the case.
The court reserved its opinion stating that it would announce a short opinion after consulting with the members of the bench.
