04 January 2004	Sunday	11 Ziqa'ad 1424

ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: The 'Mullah-military alliance' has been in cahoots in hatching a conspiracy to keep former prime minister Benazir Bhutto out of politics and country, alleged the PPP senator, Enver Baig, here on Saturday.

Commenting on the statement of MMA chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, that the deal with Gen Musharraf on legal framework order (LFO) was for the benefit of the exiled former prime ministers was typical of the MMA policy of duplicity and hypocrisy which it has been pursuing throughout the last year.

"Fearful of a public backlash or perhaps stung by conscience over the grand betrayal of the Constitution and parliament, the MMA chief now vainly seeks to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of public," he said.

"The MMA actually conspired with the military government to banish forever the former prime minister for politics and the country," he said.

"The military regime first made a Bhutto-specific law to award conviction for absenteeism from court. In order to make it applicable to Ms Bhutto, the law was given retroactive effect, he alleged.

"This law was then misapplied through judicial subversion to convict Ms Bhutto even while she was represented in the court by her defence attorneys," he said.

He alleged that Qazi Hussain Ahmed and the MMA collaborated with their military partners and validated all these Bhutto- specific laws under Article 270-AA of the "new Constitution written in the GHQ under the name of LFO."

He further alleged that Qazi Hussain Ahmad and the MMA first provided the unconstitutional mechanism of trust vote for Gen Musharraf to sneak into the office of President. Having done this, they hypocritically claimed that they would not vote for Gen Musharraf. They also endorsed all illegal Bhutto-specific laws of Gen Musharraf and yet hypocritically claim that it will benefit her.