A secret execution inspires revulsion and protest”If I am assassinated on the gallows, there will be turmoil and
turbulence, conflict and conflagration.”—A death-cell prediction by former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali BhuttoThe sputter of midnight traffic had given way to the long wait for dawn
when the 1,400 inmates of Rawalpindi District Jail began to pray.
Imperceptibly at first, their murmur grew as they recited from the
Koran; the time for execution was approaching. Shortly before 2 a.m.,
the prisoner, gaunt and ailing, was led from his dungeon death cell to
the scaffolding. His hands were tied behind his back. Stepping to the
gallows he cried out, according to one account, “Oh Lord, help me, for
I am innocent!” Thirty-five minutes later, the body was cut down, taken
away to a waiting air force plane and flown to the town of Larkana, 200
miles northeast of Karachi. There, in his family's burial plot,
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, 51, the most popular civilian politician to come
to power in Pakistan's 32 years of independence, was hastily interred
last week before the country was told of his death. It was a sudden and shabby end to a once illustrious political career and a long
personal ordeal for Bhutto. It began when his government was overthrown
by General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq in July 1977. The former Prime Minister
was arrested and subsequently charged with concocting a botched plot to
assassinate Ahmed Raza Kasuri, 43, a former political associate, in
1974. Kasuri survived the ambush by gunmen who fired on his car, but
his father was killed. There were doubts about the extent of Bhutto's
guilt and the fairness of his original trial. When the Supreme Court,
by a narrow 4-to-3 majority, upheld the guilty verdict, pleas for
clemency poured in from world leaders, including President Carter, the
Soviet Union's Leonid Brezhnev, China's Hua Guofeng , Britain's
James Callaghan and Pope John Paul II.Several months ago, Zia had served notice that he intended to “hang the
blighter,” as he put it, but hope persisted that he would spare
Bhutto's life if only to save his troubled country from another
divisive emotional trauma. Thus reaction to the execution last week was
one of shock and dismay. French President Valry Giscard d'Estaing, who
had just drafted another appeal to Zia, expressed his “profound
emotion” at the execution. Britain's Guardian editorialized: “Death
came to Bhutto not with the due panoply of justice but like a thief in
the night, a deed done shamefully, apprehensively, and with
desperation.”In an attempt to forestall protests in Pakistan, the government carried
out the death sentence in utmost secrecy. The time of the execution was
moved up four hours from the usual 6 a.m. so that Bhutto's body could
be buried before the news broke. Armed police were moved into position
around the prison during the night. Three Pakistani journalists on the
scene were arrested and held until the next day. Only Bhutto's wife
Nusrat and his daughter Benazir, 26, who have been under house arrest
near Islamabad for months, were informed that the end was near. They
were taken to Bhutto's grimy cell, equipped only with a bare mattress
on the floor, for a final visit.
