Benazir murder: Counsel for both sides blame Musharraf

Arguments in former Rawalpindi police chief’s bail plea continue.

LAHORE:

A division bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday adjourned proceedings in the bail petition of Benazir Bhutto murder accused Saud Aziz, former City Police Officer (CPO) of Rawalpindi, till today.

Counsels for the accused and the federal government informed the court that former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf was involved in the killing of Benazir Bhutto.

Counsel for Aziz, Khwaja Sultan, submitted that in the challan of the Bhutto murder case and the report of the United Nations commission, his client’s name was not included.

Sultan said three allegations were levelled against Aziz which included avoiding postmortem on Bhutto’s body, washing the crime scene and taking her caravan through a risky route instead of the proper route.

He said Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari did not allow an autopsy to be performed so Aziz could not send Bhutto’s body for postmortem. He agreed that a postmortem report would have been helpful in the investigation. As per the law of the land, he said, if relatives of the deceased do not allow an autopsy to be performed, the police cannot conduct one.

Sultan said investigations had proved that Musharraf was involved in the murder and army officials acting of Musharraf’s orders gave directions for the crime scene to be washed. He said Major Nadeem Ijaz of military intelligence had given the orders on the phone.

He said that it was on the record that Baituallah Mehsood was sending Bhutto death threats so it was Musharraf’s responsibility to ensure her security. Musharraf, he said, left holes in the security cover perhaps to facilitate the attackers.

The counsel also said that on December 27, SP Khurrum Shahzad was on duty while Aziz had gone for security duty for Nawaz Sharif who had also been present in the city.

He said suspects arrested had confessed to the crime and one of them, Rafaqat, in his statement had said that Aziz had no link with the plan of the attack or the attackers.

Later counsel for the federation, Azhar Chaudhry, told the court that according to the security plan prepared on December 25, Aziz’s duty was in Liaquat Bagh so he wrongly claimed that he was on security for Sharif. He said at the time of the blast no police official was present on site and her original route, which might have been a bit safer, was altered under some master plan to aid the attackers. He said though Musharraf is responsible for the murder, the security from the site was removed on the directions of Aziz as he was chief of the city police at that time.

The counsel for the federation was giving his arguments but proceedings were adjourned as court time came to an end. The court adjourned the hearing till today.



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