Zardari Remits Prison Terms Awarded to Interior Minister Rehman Malik

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has granted a pardon and remitted two prison terms awarded to close associate and interior minister Rehman Malik even as a court turned down the minister’s plea against his conviction in two corruption cases, said media reports.

Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said that Zardari exercised his constitutional powers and remitted the sentences awarded to Malik, reports said.

He said that Malik was pardoned under Article 45 of the constitution on the advice of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani which ‘was tendered late on Monday night’, said reports.

As per Article 45 of the constitution, President can remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by a court.

Malik is currently out of Pakistan and before granting of a pardon, reports suggested that the minister might not come back till the matter of the prison sentence was settled.

Earlier in the day, 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, reports said.

Malik, who was sentenced by anti-corruption court in absentia in 2004, has maintained that he was victimised due to political reasons during his absence from Pakistan under a law specially crafted by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for targeting political opponents.

After the Supreme Court scrapped the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance, a graft amnesty that benefited Zardari and Malik, last year, the two cases against the interior minister, in which he was given the prison terms, were reopened by the anti-corruption court.

Malik was accused of receiving two luxury cars as graft and taking away 20 tolas of gold and Rs 700,000 from the house of a suspect during a raid by the Federal Investigation Agency in the mid-1990s.

(Based on internet reports)