A special court in Pakistan has sentenced former president Pervez Musharraf to death for high treason. The charges stem from his imposing a state of emergency in 2007. Musharraf, who is on a self-imposed exile in Britain and Dubai, has denied the charges. After seizing power in a 1999 coup, Musharraf went on to survive numerous assassination attempts.

He backed the Bush administration’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and thereafter walked a tight rope on the front line of the struggle between Islamist extremists based in his country and the West. In 2008, he was defeated at the polls. But first, he is alleged to have unlawfully suspending the constitution to impose emergency rule.