Benazir murder case: LHC accepts Aziz's request for hearing in Lahore

Aziz had said he feared government officials will try to influence the case if it was heard in Rawalpindi.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court on Wednesday accepted a bail plea of former Rawalpindi CCPO Saud Aziz who is accused in the Benazir murder case for the shifting of the hearing to the Lahore bench.

Aziz's bail plea will not be heard by its Lahore bench, but no time frame has been given as yet.

Updated from print edition (below)

Benazir security failure: Former Pindi police chief wants bail hearing in Lahore

Former Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz has asked the Lahore High Court (LHC) to transfer his plea for bail from the Rawalpindi bench to the court’s principal seat in Lahore, as he fears government officials will try to influence the case.

Aziz was arrested on December 22 along with another police officer, Khurram Shehzad, after a Rawalpindi court cancelled their bail. The two are accused of dereliction of duty in providing protection for former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in Liaqat Bagh on December 27, 2007.

Aziz, through Advocate Khawaja Sultan, submitted that he did not believe he would get justice from the LHC’s Rawalpindi bench. He submitted that since it was so close to the capital, the bench could be influenced by senior government functionaries. He asked the court to transfer his bail application, pending before the Rawalpindi bench, to Lahore. He also asked the court to grant him bail as he was innocent of the charges.

Aziz and Shehzad were arrested after a UN investigation panel in April 2010 accused the government of failing to provide Bhutto with adequate protection and said investigations were hampered by the intelligence agencies.

The Rawalpindi local court while rejecting their bails had said that they had failed to protect the former prime minister. It had added that it was their duty to carry out her autopsy, but they had not. The court had rejected as evidence an audio tape in which President Asif Zardari apparently asked that her post-mortem not be carried out.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2011.