BB's BlackBerry phones: FIA hopes to unlock further evidence from data

Information retrieved from the phones will be produced before the ATC on Monday.

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has traced close to three dozen e-mails and phone calls made by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from her BlackBerry phones, in what is seen as a crucial development which may help investigators identify the persons in touch with the PPP leader during the last days before her assassination.

“Bhutto’s case observed a new twist into its probe when the FIA’s Forensics Laboratory retrieved  information from the BlackBerry phones that remained in personal use of the slain premier, unfolding some 32 messages,” a senior FIA official told The Express Tribune.

However, the battery of one BlackBerry phone was dead upon recovery, making it difficult for forensics experts to recover the data, he said.

Officials sources told The Express Tribune that Deputy Director FIA Forensics Nauman Ashraf Bodla has detected e-mails, Short Message Service (SMS) messages and phone calls (both incoming and outgoing calls) from various officials – government as well as Bhutto’s party workers.

According to details shared by sources with The Express Tribune,  Bhutto wrote an e-mail to Muhammad Ali Durrani, the then Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, in the second week of December 2007 seeking help to better her communication with the US government regarding the issue of poor security in light of militant attacks on her caravan in Rawalpindi.

The slain PPP leader wrote another e-mail to her close friend Siegel, who remained part of the intense negotiations among high officials of the US and Pakistan in 2007, saying that “there were serious threats to my life as extremism was on its climax.”

Bhutto also sent SMS messages to Daphne Barak, a famous interviewer who often writes for Mail Online. In reply to a SMS message, Barak wrote: “Bibi, you are going to Pakistan. It’s trap for you now. But you are insisting to go back.”

During last three days of her life, Bhutto sent several SMS and phone calls to staff members of then president Pervez Musharraf. However, FIA officials did not disclose the names of the members.

Meanwhile, forensics lab officials also provided information of messages and calls Bhutto made to her party workers including Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Senators Jahangir Badar, Safdar Abbasi, Naheed Khan, MNAs Sherry Rehman, Federal Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim, National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza, Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, Chairman Senate Farooq H. Naik and many other party workers.

A special investigation group of the FIA headed by Khalid Qureshi is conducting the investigation into the cell phones and will be forwarding its report before the Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) Rawalpindi.

Prosecutor FIA Ch Zulfiqar Ahmad told The Express Tribune that all the information retrieved from the BlackBerry phones would be produced before the ATC Rawalpindi on Monday.

He hoped that the information would be collected by tomorrow and the retrieved information would be helpful for the case to gear up collecting evidence for further justification.

FIA sources also revealed that the BlackBerry phones were recovered from the caretaker of Bilawal Bhutto House in Karachi.

A three-member team of FIA headed by Director Azad Khan took these phones into its custody and sent them to forensics lab in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, Senator Safdar Abbasi said that Bhutto used her phones excessively during her election campaign. “Bibi kept in touch with various friends, party workers, family members and rulers via BlackBerry phones,” Abbasi told The Express Tribune, refusing to comment on FIA findings.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2011.