Islamabad, Aug 24 - The ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) will support the trial by parliament of former president Pervez Musharraf for tampering with the constitution and arresting the Supreme Court judges after declaring emergency in November 2007, the country's top law officer said Monday.

'The PPP has ideological differences with (the opposition) PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) but it would support resolution bringing dictators and breakers of constitutions to book,' Online news agency quoted Attorney General Latif Khosa as saying.

The PPP, Khosa noted, does not believe in political victimization but if parliament passes a unanimous resolution in this regard, action must be taken against the former military dictator.

Khosa's statement, however, goes against what Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on the issue last week.

'We should do what is doable,' Gilani said in the National Assembly, while he urged the PML-N to stop playing to the gallery on the issue.

His reasoning was that the trial could commence only if there was unanimity in parliament on the issue, an indication that religious parties like the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) might not come on board.

However, in a front-paged story August 21, The News daily said that 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'.

It quoted multiple sources 'with direct knowledge of what happened in the corridors of power' Aug 11-18 last year as saying that the deal that finally saw Musharraf's departure was cobbled together by top PPP leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani, army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson, Britain's special envoy to Pakistan Mark Lyall Grant and an emissary of the Saudi Arabian king.

'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.