Ex-Leader’s Hijack Trial Nears End

Prosecutors trying ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ended their arguments Tuesday by again saying he should receive the death penalty for hijacking--despite the fact that he was not on the plane that carried his successor.

Sharif, deposed in a coup by army officers in October, is facing charges of attempted murder, kidnapping and hijacking. The charges stem from the events preceding the coup, when a plane carrying the army chief of staff, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was denied permission to land in Karachi. Army officers arrested Sharif, and Musharraf--who managed to land safely--became Pakistan’s leader.

Prosecutor Raja Qureshi maintained that Sharif deserves the maximum sentence, saying the section of law dealing with hijacking carries the same punishment for abetment and attempt to hijack a plane as it does for hijacking.

Qureshi said Sharif ordered others to deny landing rights to the plane even though he knew that it was running low on fuel, and thus risked the lives of all those aboard.

Sharif, in testimony earlier this month, said Musharraf “bore a grudge against me” because of Sharif’s decision last summer to order Pakistani guerrillas to withdraw from Indian territory in the hotly disputed Kashmir region. There were reports that the military grumbled at Sharif’s concessions.

Judge Rehmat Hussain Jafri set Friday as the day for the defense to begin its final arguments.

Along with a possible death penalty for hijacking, Sharif faces up to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for each of the kidnapping and attempted-murder charges, and seven years in prison for terrorism.

The closing arguments were delayed for more than one week after one of Sharif’s key lawyers, Iqbal Raad, was shot dead in a daylight attack in his Karachi office.

Sharif’s other lawyers vowed to stay away from the case unless it was moved to Lahore or Islamabad. They returned only after a personal appeal from Sharif.