Pervez Musharraf tries the quiet life

Today, FP‘s front page has an excellent article from Amjad Shuaib on the crimes and fall of former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf. As Shuaib notes,  the Pakistani Supreme Court’s decision this past July to declare Musharraf’s state of emergency proclamation unconstitutional means “he may be tried for treason — and possibly executed.”  With that threat ...

581145_090910_pervez2.jpg
581145_090910_pervez2.jpg
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - NOVEMBER 11: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf greets a journalist while arriving for a press conference November 11, 2007 at the President House in Islamabad, Pakistan. During his first press conference since imposing emergency rule more than a week before, Musharraf said that he would hold elections early next year and that he would quit the army and be sworn in as a civilian president once the Supreme Court struck down challenges against his October 6 re-election. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Today, FP‘s front page has an excellent article from Amjad Shuaib on the crimes and fall of former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf. As Shuaib notes,  the Pakistani Supreme Court’s decision this past July to declare Musharraf’s state of emergency proclamation unconstitutional means “he may be tried for treason — and possibly executed.” 

With that threat hanging over his head, one might expect Musharraf to escape to a remote island hideaway, or at least somewhere where he couldn’t easily be found. Not so: instead, according to the Guardian, he’s holed up in “an unassuming three-bedroom flat behind the shisha bars and kebab joints of London’s Arabic quarter.” Unconstitutional seizure of power aside, the only controversy Musharraf is attracting in Britain is his taxpayer/Scotland Yard-provided security detail. And while he lives decently well, the apartment is a far cry from the “Park Lane penthouses” his rival Nawaz Sharif used to own. 

Still, Londoners who don’t want the dictator hanging around will get their wish after this week: “he starts a 40-day lecture tour of the US next Tuesday.” 

John Moore/Getty Images

James Downie is an editorial researcher at FP.

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