On February 6, 1979, in a courtroom in Pakistan, a man with half-white hair stood on the trial bench, and this man was none other than their former leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Watching several judges on the stage exchange heads and ears, he waited quietly for the final verdict.
After a few minutes of silence, the judge's gavel shook, the courtroom fell silent for an instant, and the judge got up and read the final verdict.
Unsurprisingly, the death penalty, as soon as the result came out, everyone in the audience was talking about it, but no one knew what they said, and the man on the stage did not know, but he did not seem to show too much emotion about such a result.
From that debate at the end of last year, he had anticipated today's outcome.
At two o'clock in the morning on April 4, he took a shower, shaved his face, changed into a neat set of clothes, ate his last meal, and was taken to the execution ground by the prison guards.
His hands were tied behind his back, his face was expressionless, and he was taken to the gallows without saying a word or even struggling until the execution ground.
Looking at the strong rope in front of him, he never thought that as the president of a country, he was dedicated to the development of the country, but he fell to this point.
At the order of the executive, his head was roped and mercilessly pushed down by the executioner.
Before his death, he left only one sentence, "I am innocent," but no one heeded his complaint.
Bhutto's body was like a candle in the wind, shaking weakly in the air. It was suspended for about 30 minutes before it was put down.
So why was Bhutto, as the president of a country, sentenced to death? What does that sentence he left behind imply?
Ali Bhutto
Ali Bhutto was born in 1928 to a prominent aristocratic family, the father of a ministerial leader in the Mumbai government during British colonial rule and a chief adviser to the Sindh provincial government, in which he wielded some influence.
Growing up under the influence of his father, he was extremely politically sensitive, and after a good education, he joined the Muslim League in his youth and actively participated in the movement to separate Muslim-populated areas from India.
In addition, he devoted himself to politics, and received a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Berkeley in California in 1950, and then went on to study law at Christ Church University in London and Oxford University Law School.
During this period, Bhutto often participated in some Western parades, which accumulated a lot of organizational experience for him.
In 1952, Bhutto successfully obtained a master's degree in law, and with his strong personal communication skills, Bhutto became the best in the eyes of teachers and classmates, and the University of Southampton was very interested in Bhutto's ability, and tried to hire him as a professor at the school with a high salary.
But Bhutto refused, and he had a bigger ideal in his heart.
He must use what he has learned to improve the laws of the country and build the country with what he has learned all his life.
The following year, the ambitious young talent rejected all the olive branches and resolutely returned to his hometown, starting as an ordinary lawyer.
But the innate ability of Bhutto is destined to shine everywhere, he with excellent ability, to solve a lot of other lawyers do not dare to touch the affairs, through a strong ability to observe and investigate, Bhutto turned countless impossibilities into possibilities, became a unique figure in the legal profession at that time, but also became the object of many lawyers to learn.
And this also became a stepping stone for him to enter the government.
Because of his fame, he could not avoid dealing with government officials, during which time he made extensive contacts, met many high-ranking officials, and gained a firm foothold in both the people and the government, which made people feel the strength of Bhutto's ability.
In 1958, Pakistan's army commander, Ayyab Khan, staged a coup d'état, declared "military rule" and ascended to the presidency himself.
Ayyub Khan
Due to the peculiarities of his regime, Ayyub urgently needed some talented and law-aware people to "escort" himself, and Bhutto finally found an opportunity to enter the top of the government.
At the age of 30, he was the youngest minister in the cabinet, but his extraordinary abilities attracted much attention.
He served successively as Minister of Commerce, Press, Radio, and National Construction in the government, and under the auspices of Ayyub, he rose all the way to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Bhutto's communication skills were fully reflected in this position.
In the beginning, Bhutto wholeheartedly assisted Ayyub's regime, never wanted to establish a self-reliant regime, he supported Ayyub's land reform policy, but also approved of Ayyub's policy toward the United States, and at the same time he supported President Ayyub's proposal for the common defense of "India and Pakistan" and supported India-Pakistan cooperation to solve the Kashmir problem.
But then the two Indo-Pakistani wars that followed in Kashmir disappointed Bhutto.
President Ayyub accepted Soviet mediation because Pakistan was unable to fight any more, and signed a ceasefire agreement with the Indian prime minister in Tashkent. Bhutto believes that this agreement infringes on Pakistan's rights and interests and is unfair to Pakistan.
Bhutto and Ayyub were at odds over this.
In early 1966, Bhutto, who had been snubbed by Ayyub, resigned his post as minister of foreign affairs on the pretext of medical treatment, left his hometown, and resumed his old profession as a lawyer.
Although he left Pakistan, Bhutto still has his motherland in mind at all times, and he is determined to face his homeland with a better posture after returning to Pakistan.
Therefore, during the year of wandering abroad, Bhutto constantly studied the management methods of Western countries and learned from their management models.
During this period, Bhutto, who constantly felt the changes in the outside world, gradually changed his thinking and gradually changed, he was no longer limited to how to assist a president and help him govern the country, but thought about what he could do to make Pakistan stronger and change the current situation.
In 1967, Bhutto returned to his homeland in a very different situation than a year ago, and Ayyub's rule was already in jeopardy and precarious.
Many officials who were once like Bhutto could not stand Ayyub's fainting rule and chose to leave the government, and the rest were also struggling to support.
The people complained bitterly, and the people's life was so life-starving that Bhutto suffered in his heart.
At this time, Bhutto no longer hesitated, and he used his previous contacts to create the People's Party, which was born for the people and fought for the people, and openly opposed Ayyub's fainting notice.
As soon as the People's Party was founded, it won the support of many people, and the people looked forward to the fact that Bhutto and the People's Party could lead them out of the predicament and get a new life.
During this period, although Bhutto was in danger many times, fortunately, with the efforts of the masses, Bhutto turned the danger into a disaster every time and escaped a disaster.
In the midst of his tug-of-war with Bhutto and the resentment of the people, Ayyub gradually felt powerless, and he was unwilling to continue to accept the country, so in March 1969, he dumped the power to Yahya Khan, then the commander of the Pakistan Road Army.
Although Yahya Khan was militarily capable, he knew nothing about politics, and not long after he became president, the wave of democracy movements in Pakistan was stronger than the wave, and in desperation, he had to agree to hold a general election and vote publicly.
In December 1970, pakistan held national democratic parliamentary elections, and Bhutto's People's Party won a total of 82 votes, making it the second largest party at the time.
At this time, India seized this gap and tried to launch a third Indo-Pakistani war to seize Kashmir.
In the midst of the storm, Bhutto took over the mess in Pakistan.
At that time, India, which took the lead, had already encroached on more than 5,000 square miles of Pakistan's land, and more than 90,000 soldiers were taken prisoner, and the situation between them was becoming increasingly tense.
This was almost worse for the situation in Pakistan at the time.
At this time, Pakistan's economy was completely destroyed, industrial production was almost paralyzed, the political situation was chaotic, and it was even more difficult to resist India.
Faced with such a crisis, Bhutto immediately decided to adopt a series of political reforms. He first released Yahya and other detained leaders, and then threw himself into negotiations with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Although the two had some misunderstandings before, Bhutto was once a brilliant lawyer after all, and with his outstanding ability, the negotiation finally ended smoothly, and Bhutto did his best to protect the interests of the country in the inferior situation.
Soon, under Bhutto's leadership, Pakistan's development gradually got on track.
Combining the management experience of Western countries that he had previously learned, he formulated a new constitution that prohibited racial and sectarian discrimination, and gave citizens basic human rights, and order in Pakistan gradually returned to stability.
At the same time, Bhutto implemented land reform twice throughout the country, changed the mode of land production, ensured that the people of the whole country had land to grow, and promoted the development of agriculture.
In terms of diplomacy, Bhutto still steadily exerted his excellent communication skills, and while maintaining the country's territory, sovereign integrity and national independence, he announced his withdrawal from the Commonwealth and the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization, choosing to develop relations with third world countries.
From the beginning of his administration, Bhutto has placed the central country in a very important position in Pakistan's foreign relations.
Bhutto actively supported the policy of friendship with the mainland, promoted friendly cooperation between China and Pakistan, and became a foreign leader whom Chairman Mao trusted very much.
He visited China nine times in his lifetime and became a "regular visitor" to China, and later, under the consultation of the two countries, China and Pakistan established the Karakoram Highway, a "bridge" symbolizing friendship, which strengthened the ties between the two countries.
Bhutto's economic policies, to a certain extent, favored the middle or lower classes of the people, achieved good results, and also won the support of most of the people.
But these reforms did not take into account the interests of the big capitalists, and at the same time aroused the dissatisfaction of others, in which case some negative news gradually began to spread some Bhutto, and the reactionaries in the country rose rapidly.
In 1977, Bhutto, who considered himself a firm regime, decided to hold a national election in March, at which point nine reactionary organizations formed a coalition and decided to overthrow Bhutto and choose someone else.
However, the results of the election disappointed them greatly, and Bhutto won the election again, which made the reactionary coalition very unhappy, and they openly accused the BJP of using its own advantages in power to cheat in the election, and at the same time, small-scale riots began in many parts of Pakistan, resulting in stagnant economic development and a state of social unrest.
In the face of such chaos, Bhutto made a wrong decision, that is, in order to control the military, he overtook the rank of promoting the commander of the Third Army who was on his side as the chief of the army general staff.
As a result, in the early morning of July 5, a large number of elite armed forces poured into the city and began to occupy every corner of the city in a frenzy.
Important places such as radio stations, airports, and government offices have basically all fallen, and Pakistan is undergoing an unprecedented coup d'état, and the person who presided over the coup d'état by the military is the army chief of staff that Bhutto has just promoted.
Army Chief of Staff Chia Haq
Around two o'clock in the morning, Bhutto was arrested and imprisoned, and he went from a well-known leader of the country to a prisoner of the order.
On 28 July, after the court pronounced his verdict on Bhutto, he was acquitted, and Bhutto's fate was completely out of his control.
Bhutto chose to return to his hometown, in Lakhana, in southern Pakistan. Here, he was welcomed by everyone, and thousands of supporters gathered around the road, paving the way home with flowers.
The crowds at the train station prevented him from getting off the train, so he had to ask the driver to drive the train to another station and then take a car back to Karachi.
But the coup d'état chief of staff, Chia Hack, did not let him go, because he believed that Bhutto could threaten his regime at any time.
So on September 3, 1977, at his home on the outskirts of Lahore, Bhutto was arrested again by the FBI, and Bhutto's aides and supporters were sentenced to six months in prison.
People from all walks of life in the outside world have launched operations to rescue Bhutto, claiming that the previous crimes were purely fictitious and that the trial of the military court was unconstitutional.
However, a notification from the military authorities rejected the Supreme Court's decision to release Bhutto, saying that Bhutto and some of his colleagues had committed extremely serious crimes, including treason.
At the same time, Chia Haq removed the Chief Justice and appointed the oldest judge, Sheikh, as Chief Justice.
On 18 March 1978, after a six-month trial, the Sheikh sentenced former Prime Minister Bhutto to death by hanging for ordering political murder in 1974.
Later, Bhutto appealed against the verdict and testified his innocence on hunger strike, giving an impassioned speech, but on death row he was never able to put his hand on the railing or see the sun outside.
In this way, Bhutto survived until April 4, 1979, when he was sent to the execution ground for hanging.
Before he died, he left only one sentence: "I am innocent." ”
But today, it seems that it is useless to explore the truth of the time.