Malik Mohammad Qayyum

Malik Mohammad Qayyum (born December 18, 1944), Senior Advocate Supreme Court, is the former Attorney General of Pakistan, who was replaced with Senator Latif Khosa when President Pervez Musharraf resigned on 18 August 2008. He became Attorney General following the resignation of Makhdoom Ali Khan. 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 4, 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 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."

Profile Background from HRW's page

Malik Qayyum is a former judge who is believed to be one of the key persons responsible for the down fall of Parvez Musharraf, a PML-N loyalist Qayyum resigned from the bench in 2001 amid charges of misconduct. Qayyum later became Shabaz Sharif's lawyer who represented the former's exile case. Arguing that no agreement between any parties could deny a citizen's right to live in his country. The case was the first major setback to the tyrant regime of Parvez Musharraf which decided to ignore the court ruling and forcibly sent Shabaz Sharif into forced exile.

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.

A close associate of Nawaz Sharif and then Musharraf, Qayyum was approached by the Musharraf government to represent them in the dismisal of Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry,Qayyum decide to 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.

Judge Malik Qayyum, who presided over the investigation, even said in 2006 that he had been lenient with some players because he "had a soft spot for them" – a confession of staggering negligence. [6]

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.