Malik Mohammad Qayyum

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Malik Mohammad Qayyum (born December 18, 1944), Senior Advocate Supreme Court, is the current Attorney General of Pakistan.^[1]^[2]. He became Attorney General following the resignation of Makhdoom Ali Khan^[3]. He is a former Judge of the Lahore High Court which he resigned from after a phone transcript of his was released in which he colluded with then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government to fix judgement in a case before him involving Benazir Bhutto. Mr Qayyum denied that the voice in the telephone conversation was his. The Lahore High Court was recently moved challenging his appointment as Attorney General [1] along with another petition alleging fraud by his private office in execution of sales deeds. The latter case is up for hearing on February 4th 2008[2].

Malik Qayyum was also recorded as saying that the Pakistani general election, 2008 are going to be rigged[3]. Qayyum March 10, 2008 rejected a plan by opposition lawmakers to reinstate the country's ousted Supreme Court justices within 30 days of parliament's first session, because President Pervez Musharraf's dismissal of the judges was legal under the constitution. [4]

Malik Qayyum is the son of Justice (retired) Muhammad Akram one of the four Punjabi judges who under the influence of General Zia-ul-Haq's military government sentenced Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to death. [5] This fact was also noted by Benazir Bhutto in her book "Reconciliation".

[edit] Profile Background from HRW's page

Malik Qayyum is a former judge who resigned from the bench in 2001 amid charges of misconduct. On April 15, 1999, a two-judge panel of the Lahore High Court headed by Qayyum convicted Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari in a corruption case. They were sentenced to five years in prison, fined US$8.6 million dollars each, disqualified as members of parliament for five years, and forced to forfeit their property. The impending verdict led Bhutto to go into exile in March 1999.

In February 2001, the Sunday Times, a British newspaper, published a report based on transcripts of 32 audio tapes, which revealed that Qayyum convicted Bhutto and Zardari for political reasons. The transcripts of the recordings reproduced by the newspaper showed that Qayyum asked then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s anti-corruption chief, Saifur Rehman, for advice on the sentence: “Now you tell me how much punishment do you want me to give her?”

In April 2001, on the basis of this evidence, a seven-member bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld an appeal by the couple, overturning the conviction. In its ruling, the Supreme Court contended that Qayyum had been politically motivated in handing down the sentence. Faced with a trial for professional misconduct before Pakistan’s Supreme Judicial Council, the constitutional body authorized to impeach senior judges, Qayyum opted to resign his post in June 2001.

A close associate of Musharraf, Qayyum was appointed as the lead counsel on behalf of Pakistan’s federal government in the presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, instituted after Chaudhry was first illegally deposed by Musharraf on March 9, 2007. A full bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court reinstated Chief Justice Chaudhry on July 20, 2007.

Qayyum was appointed attorney general of Pakistan by Musharraf in August 2007 following the resignation of Makhdoom Ali Khan on a point of principle regarding the failure of the reference being a 'huge failure for the government' which required the chief law officer of the country to take the responsibility as the authorities that had initiated it were not willing to.