Islamabad, May 19: Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik just escaped landing in jail by an eleventh hour pardon by President Asif Ali Zardari after a court dismissed his appeal against conviction in two graft cases.
Zardari granted a pardon and remitted two prison terms given to close aide Malik, hours after the Lahore High Court dismissed the minister’s appeal, presidential spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said late on Monday.
“ The pardon, which was tendered late on Monday night, was granted under Article 45 of the Constitution on the advice of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani,” Babar said.
Article 45 of the Constitution empowers the President to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by a court.
Malik, 59, a close confidant of the Pakistan Peoples Party ( PPP) chairperson, is currently out of the country. There were unconfirmed reports earlier that he might not return to Pakistan until the matter of the prison sentence was settled.
Earlier on Monday, a two- judge bench of the Lahore High Court headed by Chief Justice Khwaja Muhammad Sharif dismissed Malik’s plea against his conviction by an anti- corruption court and restored the two three- year prison terms awarded to him.
The court’s ruling put immense pressure on Malik to resign before filing an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Lahore High Court’s decision.
Malik has maintained that he was victimised under a law specially crafted by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for targeting political opponents.
—PTI