Musharraf will ‘certainly’ be arrested: Gilani

Former president Pervez Musharraf will “certainly” be arrested if he returns to Pakistan, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Friday. “In fact there have been murder charges against him, and there have even been some very grave charges against him, and the Supreme Court has already given a verdict against him,” Gilani told CNN from the Global Economic Forum in Davos. “Certainly when he’ll come back, he has to face those charges and certainly be arrested,” he said. Musharraf announced plans to return from exile in late January and to run in upcoming elections, but his party said he was reassessing those plans when Pakistan’s elected government warned that if he returned, he faced arrest. Gilani also admitted “a lot of challenges” in the war on terrorism, including militancy in the country’s northwest. “We are fighting for our own selves, for our own survival, because these militants, they have killed 30,000 innocent people, 5,000 brave soldiers,” he said. The fight against terrorism has caused a “loss of economy”, Gilani said, but investment in the country remains. “Yes, we are fighting a war on extremism and terrorism, and we’re a frontline state, yes, there are a lot of challenges,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean that there is no investment coming to Pakistan. We have offered very lucrative incentives for investment in Pakistan and there is a lot of investment coming to Pakistan.” Gilani said the people in Pakistan were “bitter” over the attack by NATO forces last November that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border. NATO has said the attack was “unintended”. “We have paid so much price for the war on terrorism,” Gilani said. “People should appreciate our struggle.” The prime minister also met Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Friday on the margins of the World Economic Forum meeting, telling her that Pakistan was keen to move towards a free trade agreement with Thailand and stressed focused talks for increased bilateral trade between the two countries. Congratulating Yingluck on becoming the first female prime minister of Thailand, Gilani said trade between the two countries was increasing progressively and had touched one billion dollars. He added that there was a huge potential to increase it further.