RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: Co-Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and former President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari Tuesday informed the apex court that he had no role in the promulgation of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) as he was in jail at that time.

The NRO promulgated by the then President General Pervez Musharraf in 2007, granted amnesty to politicians and other individuals by quashing various corruption and criminal cases against them.

The PPP co-chairman filed a written reply in response to the petition of Feroz Shah Gilani.

Zardari stated cases against him were reopened after the Supreme Court judgment and all the cases were tried de novo (afresh). However, in those cases, he was acquitted on merit.

The former president informed that the pending case before the Swiss courts had been finished on merit. The response stated that Zardari was acquitted from the criminal cases under the law. Zardari stated that allegations of looting or damaging the national exchequer cannot be proved against him.

He contended that his political rivals had created false cases against him. He said the intention behind leveling allegations against him was to malign his reputation and his party.

In a previous hearing of the case on June 6, the Supreme Court had issued a notice to Musharraf. The petition making Musharraf, Zardari and former attorney general Malik Abdul Qayyum as respondents was filed by one Feroz Shah Gilani.

The petitioner had requested the court to order recovery of a huge amount of public money misappropriated and wasted by them through unlawful means already on record in different judgments of the Supreme Court and high courts.

He had contended that Musharraf subverted the Constitution by declaring November 3, 2007 emergency followed by the promulgation of the NRO, through which criminal and corruption cases against politicians, including Zardari, were arbitrarily withdrawn causing huge financial losses to the national exchequer.