It is to date the dPakistan’s last military leader. IFormer President and General Pervez Musharraf died Sunday February 5 at the age of 79 after a long illness, the army said. He died in hospital in Dubai, the media said. Senior military officials have “expressed their sincere condolences”.
Pervez Musharraf took over as head of Pakistan in 1999 in a coup after then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif tried to remove him as army chief. The general had declared himself president in June 2001, before winning a controversial referendum in April 2002.
During his nine years in office, until 2008, he oversaw a period of economic growth and played the appeasement card against rival India. After the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States, in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, he aligned his country with Washington’s positions. Pervez Musharraf then presented himself as a regional bulwark against Al-Qaeda, whose leaders had found refuge in the border areas of Afghanistan. He escaped at least three al-Qaeda assassination attempts.
Prosecuted for “high treason”
His opponents denounced his hold on power, the “illegal” dismissal of Supreme Court judges or the imposition of a state of emergency. After the assassination of the leader of the opposition, Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007, he experienced a rout in the elections the following year and found himself isolated. At the height of its unpopularity, subjected to the pressure of justice, he was forced to resign in August 2008.
Pervez Musharraf was suspected of having taken part in a vast conspiracy to kill his rival before an election, which he has always denied. In December 2019, a special court sentenced him to death in absentia for “high treason”, for having introduced a state of emergency in 2007. But his sentence was quashed shortly after.
