The Pakistani government is seeking to oust the leader of a three-judge panel that handed a sentence to the country's former President Pervez Musharraf citing a violation of judicial conduct.
According to Law Minister Farogh Naseem, the judge in question, Waqar Ahmad Seth, has breached a code of conduct by issuing an order stipulating that Musharraf's body should hang in public for three days, should he die before the execution of the death sentence.
Naseem emphasised that Seth is unfit to be a judge of "any high court or the Supreme Court".
On Tuesday, a special court convened to try the former president sentenced Musharraf to death, after analysing complaints, records, arguments and facts in the case for three months.
Former President of Pakistan and former military leader General Pervez Musharraf was found guilty of treason in a drawn-out case. He is currently under self-imposed exile in Dubai seeking medical treatment.
Musharraf seized power from then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif through a military coup on 12 October 1999, when the latter reportedly intended to oust him from the post of the army chief.
Musharraf led a military-dominated government as army chief until 2007. He nominated himself as Pakistan’s 10th president on 20 June 2001, and secured himself in that position till 18 August 2008, through a controversial referendum held on 1 May 2002.
He was forced out of office and threatened with impeachment. Musharraf became Pakistan’s first army chief and president to be charged with treason on 31 March 2014, for imposing a state of emergency, in a bid to end challenges to his rule by a hostile judiciary, Islamist militants and political rivals.
The former President pleaded not guilty to five charges and dismissed them as being politically motivated. The trial, however, could not be concluded over the past six years for several reasons.
