Former Pakistani attorney general retired Judge Malik Muhammad Qayyum passed away in Lahore at the age of 79.
According to family sources, the provincial capital’s Johar Town neighbourhood will host his funeral prayer. His final rituals will likely be attended by members of the legal and political fraternities.
Brother of the late politician Muhammad Pervaiz Malik and the interim Punjab Health Minister Dr. Javed Akram, Mr. Qayyum formerly held the positions of judge on the Lahore High Court and head of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
On December 18, 1944, retired Justice Qayyum was born to former Supreme Court Justice Muhammad Akram, a member of the LHC court that had sentenced former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to death. He began practising law in 1964, and in October 1988, he was promoted to the position of judge of the supreme court. He had also been a member of the Punjab Local Election Commission.
After being implicated in a plot involving the 2001 hearing of a case involving the assassinated premier Benazir Bhutto, Judge Qayyum was forced to resign from his position as a judge on the LHC. Malik Qayyum then began his career as a Supreme Court attorney, and in 2005, he was successful in winning the election for president of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
In addition, he served as the chairman of an inquiry group that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) set up to look into claims of match-fixing in the 1990s. Salim Malik and Ata-ur-Rehman are among the cricket players included in the 2000 report as having committed offences.
