A court in Pakistan sentenced the country's former military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf in absentia on Tuesday to death for high treason, the BBC reports.

Why it matters: The ruling in the case of Musharraf, who's been in Dubai since 2016, marks "the first time in Pakistan's 72-year history that a military ruler was tried with high treason for imposing emergency rule and suspending the constitution in 2007," per Bloomberg, which notes he was a key U.S. ally following the 9/11 attacks.