Benazir assassination case: Court to cross-examine Mark Siegel on 20th

ATC adjourns case till January 11

RAWALPINDI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Monday adjourned the Benazir Bhutto assassination case till January 11.

The court was scheduled to record statement of SSP Tahir Ayub, who is a prosecution witness in the case, but the case was adjourned after the witnesses and suspects requested the court that their testimonies be recorded in presence of their lawyers.

ATC judge Rai Muhammad Ayub Khan Marth heard the case in the Adiala Jail.

All suspects including DIG Saud Aziz, SP Khurram Shehzad, Etizaz Shah, Sher Zaman, Abdul Rashid, Rafaqat and Hasnain were present in the court. Former president Pervez Musharraf was represented by his counsel Safdar Javed Malik.

The court will cross examine American journalist Mark Siegel, a witness in the case, on January 20.

In his testimony recorded on October 1, Siegel had said that days before she travelled to Pakistan, slain prime minister Benazir Bhutto received threatening phone calls from the then president Pervez Musharraf, warning her of threats to her life should she choose to return before the 2007 elections.

Siegel had recorded his statement before Justice Marth via video link from the Pakistan Embassy in Washington. General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, however, has vehemently denied that he made menacing telephone calls to Benazir Bhutto ahead of her return to Pakistan in 2007.

Assets reference case adjourned

Meanwhile, an accountability court on Monday adjourned the assets reference case against former president Asif Ali Zardari till January 6. The court could not record the witness statement since the NAB prosecutor was on leave.

Zardari’s counsels Farooq H Naik and Arshad Tabrez were present in the court.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2016.