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FO flays C'wealth

SG's remarks

on ATC verdict

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has taken strong exception to the reported remarks by Don Mckinnon, Secretary General, Commonwealth, regarding the court verdict against the former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif.

Reacting to media reports on his statement, the spokesman of the Foreign Office has recalled that the transparent and open and fair proceedings of the trial have been appreciated by the international media and the observers from a large number of countries who were given free and unhindered access.

The defendants themselves and their lawyers have also publicly expressed their full confidence in the integrity of the court and the fair manner in which the trial has been conducted. Thus, for the Secretary General to reject the court verdict is to betray a biased approach and amounts to interference in the judicial process as well as in the internal affairs of Pakistan.

He said it is not for the Secretary General of the Commonwealth to arrogate to himself the right to criticize the judgement. He should leave it to sovereign member countries to make their own comments, if they chose to do so.

The spokesman also condemned the Secretary General's reported desire to seek Pakistan's exclusion from other organisations. "It is beyond the mandate of a civil servant," the spokesman said. International organisations do not take dictation from the Secretary General of the Commonwealth. He should keep his counsel to himself.ÑAPP