‘Bhutto and I’

The News talks to Hafeez Lakho, lawyer of ZA Bhutto,who recalls the Quaid-e-Awam’s last days

Saturday, April 04, 2009
By Imtiaz Ali

Karachi

Along with Ghulam Ali Memon and Yahya Bakhtiar, Abdul Hafeez Lakho, was among

three prominent lawyers on the defence team of the case

against the former premier Z.A. Bhutto.

Lakho spent long hours holding meetings with the founder leader of the Pakistan People’s Party during his last days, and in this interview with The News on Bhutto’s death anniversary, he talks about the case, his long association with Bhutto and how the legal events leading up to his hanging had been manipulated by the executive.



Bhutto and I

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and I had been together since 1953 when I was General Secretary of the Sindh Youth Front. After Bhutto Sahib returned from abroad, he replaced Sheikh Anwar’s position as president.

We were together during the struggle against the formation of the One-Unit, and when he became Chief Martial Law Administrator and President, we reminded him of part he had played against the One-Unit.

Bhutto, however, said he had to consult his associates, and we parted ways for nearly three years.

But we got together again after the dissolution of the One-Unit. The late Ghulam Ali Memon was appointed as Advocate General Sindh, and I as Additional Advocate General of Sindh.

After General Zia-ul-Haq imposed martial law in the country, all the law officers appointed by the government of Prime Minister Bhutto decided to quit in protest, but as General Zia had promised to hold election within 90 days, the other AGs and I were asked not to resign during the interim period. However, I resigned.

Meanwhile, the case against Bhutto Sahib had already started at Lahore, and his defence team had been formed. When he was convicted by the Lahore High Court and imprisoned in the Rawalpindi jail, Mr Bhutto sent me a message through Ghulam Ali Memon to come and see him. He asked me to join the team of lawyers to defend him in the Supreme Court (SC). I readily agreed.

And so, on April 4, (just a year before Bhutto was hanged), I left Karachi and went to Islamabad to start work on the case.

Last efforts to save Bhutto’s life: The case

After the first judgment, we filed a review application before the SC, only to have it dismissed. I must mention here that Justice Durab Patel had subsequently said that they signed the judgment of review as they were assured by late Anwarul Haq (the then Chief Justice of Pakistan) that in case the whole SC requested that his (Bhutto) case may be considered for lesser punishment, that is not death. Justice Anwar was assured that recommendations of the SC would be accepted.

But none of this happened, and we had every reason to believe that in spite of international pressure, a person like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was going to be hanged.

In consultation with Yahya Bakhtiar and Mr Sharif of Mirpurkhas, I prepared a second review petition which was duly signed by the late Yahya Bakhtiar. It was given to me as an “Amanat.” I was to file the petition as soon as Bakhtiar told me to do so.

Yahya Sahib finally called me on the evening of April 2 and told me to present the petition to the SC bench in Karachi. I immediately contacted my advocate on record (AOR), but he refused to sign the petition on the grounds that SC rules had been amended. According to him, he was forbidden to sign our second review petition, and said that he would lose his job if he did.

Without the signature of an AOR, no document can be presented in the SC, so I immediately contacted Mr Siddiqi, our second AOR in Islamabad, who readily agreed to come to Karachi and sign the petition.

Mr Siddiqi came in on the morning of April 3. The team, myself, Mr Siddiqi, and my other colleagues including Raza Rabbani (former federal minister who resigned recently) and barrister Saleem and his wife, (the couple was not enrolled as SC lawyers, but helped us prepare the case) all went to the Sindh High Court (SHC) building, where the SC bench was located.

But this time, the Deputy Registrar of the court refused to receive the petition, so I got the intervention of Justice Mohammed Haleem (former Chief Justice of Pakistan who had given a dissenting judgment in the Bhutto case). At that time, he was a senior SC judge in Karachi. We waited outside to be called in, but at about 1:00 p.m., Justice Haleem’s peon locked the chamber and informed us that he had already left.

We rushed to his house, where he was offering his Zuhr prayers, but when he met with us, he told us he was unable to do anything. In the meantime, Justice Dorab Patel had come to Karachi from Quetta. Justice Patel was senior to Justice Haleem, and by then was the only one who could entertain the matter.

So at 3:30 that afternoon, we visited his house near Frere Hall. His clerk wanted to know why I had come, and when I told him the reason and that it was urgent, he returned with a message saying I should present the appeal in court the next day.

I told the clerk that it would be too late and also informed Yahya Bakhtiar, who asked me to rush to Islamabad and present the petition at the main seat where Ghulam Safdar Shah was in Islamabad as the judge in charge.

This may surprise you, but I was so confused that when I left home for the airport, I forgot to take along my briefcase which had all the files. I realised it only when after I had already crossed the security barrier and could not come back. But the security staff was very cooperative. They and the PIA staff gave me 15 minutes time to get my bag and said they would try to make sure the plane didn’t leave without me. I rang up my home and my neighbour Colonel Aziz - at one time a prisoner of war in East Bengal, who was released by Z.A.

Bhutto’s efforts ñ who then reached the airport in 10 minutes and handed me briefcase.

Back in Islamabad, I stayed in the same hotel I had been staying for entire year, but the next morning on April 4 just as I was about to leave for the court, Ayub, the Bera who had served me for a whole year, came in crying and carrying an Urdu newspaper (Nawa-i-Waqt) containing news of the death of Mr Bhutto. I immediately contacted Yahya Sahib at Quetta, who said I could go back to Karachi.



Predetermined judgment

It was a predetermined judgment. This was the first time that a judgment had turned into judicial murder. From day one, we had known the fate of our appeal. Shaheed Bhutto had already said that the people may be able to get him released but also said that we lawyers should continue do our duty. There may be judgments that can carry doubt, but this is the only judgment where murder appears to be apparent.

We had raised “good grounds” in our first appeal, but since our second review would have further exposed the blunders committed and been taken up again by the international media, the SC’s rules were amended to avoid such an embarrassment.



Benazir Bhutto sends a message through “shopkeeper” woman

The time of Bhutto’s death, or rather, his Shahadat, was probably fixed in the early hours of March 1, (just over a month before he was hanged). We received a message from Shaheed Benazir Bhutto that both she and Begum Nusrat had been asked to visit the jail for their last meeting. BB was not feeling well and excused herself, but was warned that it would be her last opportunity.

Through a woman who runs a small make-shift shop near the Rest House where the two ladies were kept under confinement, BB then sent word to a friend in Islamabad about it, who then passed it on it to a friend in Karachi and Yahya Sahib. That is how we tried our second appeal for filing a review. I handed over the original copy of the second review to BB for safe custody and future record.

Dissenting judgment

While judges were given understanding that their orders or instructions would not be carried, the Registrar of the SC would not convey the same. Justice Waheedudin (member of the SC bench) had said on record that since he was not well at the time, he had passed a dissenting judgment from his bed.

I, meanwhile, was told in Islamabad that he (Justice Waheedudin) was ready to pronounce his dissenting judgment in public and face the consequences.

I went to visit Justice Waheedudin at his house, along with both local and foreign journalists, but his son Mr Wajihuddin (former SC judge) told us that his father was not feeling well and he would not meet with the media.

The significance of Waheedudin’s dissenting judgment is that it would have raised the judgment to 4-4, meaning that there were an equal number of the SC bench members both in favour of and against Bhutto.

In that case, Bhutto would have been given the “benefit of doubt”.

Originally, it had been a nine-member bench, but one of the judges had retired. We requested that the government give him (the retired judge) an extension for this case on the grounds Justuce Waheedudin had also received an extension, but our written application was rejected. Had it been otherwise, five judges out of nine would have passed a judgment in favour of Mr Bhutto.



The longest meetings (Katchehris)

Out of all the advocates on the team, I was the one who’d had the longest meetings with Bhutto. Whenever the court was closed for a week or more during a holiday, everybody went back home, but Mr Bhutto had said that I should remain with him to visit him in jail everyday. This to the extent that when I left Islamabad on the night before Eid, I offered my Eid prayers in Karachi and returned to Islamabad the same evening, just so I could meet Mr Bhutto.

A brave man

When I knew that meetings of advocates would be stopped after the judgment in the first review petition, Bhutto Sahib would want to ask about all the rules. I went through the relevant rules concerning preparations for hanging, and when I met him that evening, he asked me things like whether the jail authority would allow him to retain “shaving safety” for shaving. I told him “They may even take away the cummerbund.”

When I was leaving, he said “Hafeez, you just behave as if this is not our last meeting. Leave me as you used to leave me. Just shake hands and go. Do not look back and do not show your tears to the people who are watching us.” He was a brave man.



Vivid memories

There was one occasion that people may not know about, or that those who do know about it are no longer with us. The SHC Bar Association was holding its annual dinner at the SHC premises. I was a member of the managing committee at that time and the late Sharaf Faridi was president of the association. Security staff (government agencies) asked us to provide a complete list of our guests, including all advocates who would be attending the dinner, but we refused. We informed Yahya Bakhtiar, and he said we had done the right thing.

The security people told Prime Minister Bhutto, that they have not cleared his visit to the dinner. They asked him to cancel the dinner.

Bhutto Sahib contacted Yahya Sahib and told him his predicament.

“I have invited friends as Attorney General,” Yahya Sahib told him. “I will have to go whether you come or not as there would be guests coming from outside the country as well.” He asked all of us to continue to prepare for the function and not to think that it would be cancelled.

About half an hour before the function was scheduled to begin Yahya Bakhtiar was informed by his wife that she had received a message from the Prime Minister House saying that he (Bhutto) had decided to attend the function with or without security. Bhutto Sahib did not succumb to pressure of the security personnel.

After dinner, the security personnel informed us that their persons had taken care of security as all the tables near main table where Bhutto was sitting had one or two security personnel sitting close by.

When we asked how they could say this with all the front tables occupied by advocates or judges, they told us that their “trusted” persons were among them.