Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Pervaiz Rashid has said that former military ruler General (r) Pervez Musharraf, who was recently sentenced to death in abstentia for treason, “was allowed to go abroad for medical treatment on the recommendation of then army chief Raheel Sharif”, and the government stood “powerless”.
“We [the PML-N government] didn’t have the power to stop him,” said the former information minister, who was sacked in 2016 following the Dawn Leaks fiasco that revealed the details of a high level civil-military meeting discussing the issue of Pakistan’s banned outfits.
Speaking to a private media outlet, Rasheed has also claimed that Gen (r) Raheel Sharif wanted an extension in his tenure as the army chief, but the then government of prime minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif refused it.
However, a former army general rejected Rasheed’s claims that the PML-N had turned down Gen (r) Raheel’s request for an extension in his tenure. “In fact, the PML-N government had offered to give Gen (r) Raheel a promotion by making him a field marshal,” Lt Gen (r) Amjad Shoaib said while speaking to the TV channel.
He added that Shehbaz Sharif and then interior minister Chaudhry Nisar wanted to give Gen (r) Raheel an extension in his tenure as the army chief. Shoaib said that Raheel had announced 10 months before his retirement that he would not take extension.
“Raheel Sharif had an offer from Saudi Arabia,” the former military official said.
In 2015, Saudi Arabia announced that it would form a new Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition force. Gen (r) Raheel Sharif was appointed the alliance’s chief in January 2017, months after his retirement as the army chief.
