This also reinforces the belief that Musharraf had stepped down last August under an elaborate deal brokered between the Pakistani government, the army, the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia.

The Pakistani government has been speaking in twin voices on prosecuting Musharraf.

'We should do what is doable,' Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had said in the National Assembly last week in response to a suggestion that parliament try Musharraf for tampering with the constitution.

In a front-paged story Aug 21, The News said Gilani 'was actually alluding to those unwritten assurances provided to Musharraf from the ruling coalition, the military leadership and Pakistan's trusted international friends in the week that followed his resignation from the office on Monday, August 18, last year'.

'The bottom line of this deal was to grant Pervez Musharraf a graceful departure from the presidency with guarantees that there would no impeachment or court proceedings against him in future,' a senior official with direct knowledge of what happened in the decisive week said.

But, on Monday, Attorney General Latif Khosa was quoted as saying that the ruling PPP will support the trial by parliament.

'The PPP has ideological differences with the PML-N but it would support a resolution bringing dictators and breakers of constitutions to book,' Khosa maintained.