ISLAMABAD, 8 June 2007 — Pakistan’s chief justice wanted President Pervez Musharraf to dissolve the government and make him head of an interim regime several months before his ouster, an intelligence chief said yesterday.
Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, whose March 9 suspension by Musharraf sparked a national crisis, also wanted spies to feed him details about other judges, Military Intelligence Director Maj. Gen. Nadeem Ijaz said in an affidavit.
The sworn statement, one of three filed by senior officials to the Supreme Court yesterday, is the government’s response to Chaudhry’s claims that he was intimidated by President Musharraf and other generals.
Ijaz, whose organization is one of Pakistan’s three main spy agencies, said that Chaudhry asked him to come for a meeting a few months ago at which he started discussing the internal political situation.
“He was of the view that the president should dissolve the assemblies as they were becoming a nuisance and hold elections under the CJP (Chief Justice of Pakistan),” Ijaz said in the affidavit.
In Pakistan the president must dissolve Parliament and the senate before calling elections, which are held under an interim administration.
“He wanted me to assure all concerned that he will make things very smooth” once he was put in power, Ijaz said. Chaudhry also regularly tasked him “to provide information on judges ... so he could build a database for his own reference,” he said.
Musharraf’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Hamid Javed, and Intelligence Bureau director retired Brig. Ijaz Shah also filed statements to the court yesterday saying they had not pressured Chaudhry.
Lawyers for the chief justice said they were “blatant lies.”
Musharraf meanwhile berated members of the ruling coalition led by the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) for failing to stand by him during the crisis, the worst since he took power in a bloodless coup in 1999, reports said.
“I bluntly say you always leave me alone in time of trial and tribulation,” he was quoted by The News, an English-language daily, as telling allies on Wednesday.
“I see the party nowhere. You people are not mobilized,” he said.
In contrast Chaudhry’s supporters said he planned to address a rally in the southern city of Karachi on July 3. The last time he tried to travel there, on May 12, more than 40 people died in an outbreak of political violence.
Opposition leaders say Musharraf ousted the judge to remove legal hurdles to his bid to remain army chief past the end of 2007, when he is constitutionally obliged to quit the post.
Presidential and parliamentary elections are also expected later this year.
