Interior minister pardoned hours after Lahore court ruling ISLAMABAD – A court on Monday asked embattled President Asif Ali Zardari to explain how he can be co-chairman of the country's ruling party and head of state at the same time, a lawyer said. Separately, Zardari set aside sentences issued by anti-corruption courts in 2004 against his interior minister and close aide, Rehman Malik, hours after Lahore High Court dismissed Malik's challenge to them, a presidential spokesman said. The legal challenge to Zardari over his two posts does not pose an immediate threat to him but it is a reminder of the legal difficulties he faces, legal analysts said. Zardari, the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is co-chairman of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which emerged the biggest party after a February 2008 general election and heads a ruling coalition. The Pakistan Lawyers Forum (PLF) filed a petition, or a challenge, questioning the right of the president to hold the two offices and in response, the Lahore High Court ordered Zardari's principal secretary to explain. “Since the president could not appear because of security reasons, the court asked his principal secretary to appear in court on May 25,” PLF president A.K. Dogar said. There is no constitutional bar on the president holding office in a political party but Dogar said the Supreme Court had in the past barred a president from holding a party post. “Our Supreme Court judges decided in 1993 that the president should be non-partisan. He should not involve himself in political battles. He should shun politics but here he is a party head, which is illegal,” he said. The Supreme Court, which in December threw out a controversial law that had protected Zardari and others, including Malik, has called for old corruption cases against him to be revived. In a move sure to ignite further criticism, late Monday night Zardari pardoned Malik, the country's interior minister. “The president has set aside the sentences on the advice of the prime minister,” spokesman Farhatullah Babar said. Malik was seeking the dismissal of two corruption charges which had been reinstated by the Supreme Court's rejection of a controversial amnesty law last December. But the court in Lahore dismissed his petition challenging the sentences issued by anti-corruption courts in 2004. Malik was accused of looting in a house at Allama Iqbal Town in Lahore and misuse of official vehicles as director of the Federal Investigation Agency in the 90s. The accountability court had given Malik a three-year sentence for not appearing before it despite repeated notices. At the time, he was living in self-exile in Britain.
