ISLAMABAD: PPP Cha­ir­man Bilawal Bhutto-Zar­dari on Monday reques­ted the Supreme Court to order the live-streaming of a long-pending presidential reference seeking to revi­sit the 1979 controversial death sentence awar­ded to the party’s founder and former prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa, a nine-judge SC bench will take up the reference on today (Tuesday).

In his application, Mr Bhutto-Zardari stated that his grandfather was hanged, but his ideology remained.

“The case is a blot not just on the history of the family but a wretched stain on the entire judicial system of Pakistan and remains so till date,” the application said.

Earlier, a similar request was made by former law minister Babar Awan in 2011 on behalf of then president Asif Ali Zardari to allow at least one camera to video-record the entire court proceedings in a similar fashion as was done in the O.J. Simpson murder trial held by the US superior court and the Nuremberg trials.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2023