Bhutto’s Party Rejects Verdict, Urges Protests
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistan People’s Party of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Friday rejected her conviction the previous day for corruption and announced plans for protests, including convening “people’s courts” to prove her innocence.
The party’s Central Executive Committee called for nationwide demonstrations and a strike Tuesday, a sit-in outside parliament by party deputies the next day, then more protests Friday, a party spokesman said.
The committee asked Bhutto, now in Britain, to wait for its advice before returning home, while lawyers seek a temporary freeze against the court ruling that sentenced the former prime minister to five years in prison, party Secretary-General Ahmad Mukhtar told a news conference.
He said all the party’s members of parliament had sent resignations to be formally submitted if Bhutto, who has been prime minister twice, is barred from politics because of the conviction.
A two-judge accountability bench on Thursday also sentenced Bhutto’s husband, Sen. Asif Ali Zardari, to five years in prison, fined the couple $8.6 million and ordered the confiscation of their property on charges of taking kickbacks in exchange for a state contract.
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