Benazir murder case: PPP to file three appeals against ATC verdict

Calls for trying Pervez Musharraf who has been declared absconder

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has decided to file three appeals in the Supreme Court against the accountability court verdict in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case.

Zardari will file appeals as legal heir of the victim ‘aggrieved by the verdict’ and advocate Latif Khosa will represent him in the case.

The decision was taken during a meeting at Bilawal House, Karachi on Thursday. The meeting was co-chaired by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Asif Ali Zardari.

It was decided during the meeting that Bilawal would become an intervener in a presidential reference filed by Asif Ali Zardari in the Supreme Court to revisit the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto case. Senator Farooq H Naek will represent Bilalwal in pursuing the reference.

The meeting was followed by a press conference addressed by Khosa, who was accompanied by other senior leaders of the party including Nayyer Bukhari, Farhatullah Babar and Chaudhry Manzoor.

Khosa said that Zardari, the legal heir of Benazir Bhutto, had serious reservations over the anti-terrorism court verdict and this was why the party had decided to file the appeals, challenging the decision..

پیپلز پارٹی کا انتہائی اہم اجلاس بلاول ھائوس میں جاری۔ اجلاس کی صدارت چئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری اور سابق صدر آصف علی زرداری کر رہے ہیں۔ pic.twitter.com/XjsOpjF5KM

— PPP (@MediaCellPPP) September 7, 2017

An appeal would be filed against the militants acquitted by the ATC, he said, adding that a second one would be filed against General (retd) Pervez Musharaf and a third seeking harsher punishment against Saud Aziz and Khurrum Shehzad, the two police officers sentenced in the case.

“Now that the Benazir Bhutto’s murder case has been finalised, we demand that former army chief Pervez Musharraf, who has been declared an absconder, must also be punished. All evidence point against him,” Khosa said, accusing former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar of paving the way for Musharraf’s exit from the country.

“The court is not bound to wait for an absconder, but it can arrange a lawyer for [representing] him,” he said.



He said 68 witnesses had been cross-questioned in the case and Saud Aziz was not responsible for Benazir Bhutto’s security. This, he added, was the sole responsibility of Musharraf.

“He was responsible for ordering proper security for Benazir Bhutto’s public meeting in Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi. No one but higher authorities had ordered washing the scene of the blast,” he said, alleging that the then interior minister shifted the blame to Baitullah Mehsud of the defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan at the behest of Musharraf.

He said Bilal and Ikramullah were suicide bombers who were received by facilitator Shafqat Husaain and another accomplice before the incident.

“The mobile phone record of these people is also available,” he said, adding that the suspects were arrested and confessed to their crime before the court, but they had been acquitted in the case.

Referring to the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto case, he said that Zardari had filed a reference in the Supreme Court in 2011 during his tenure as president, calling for reopening the Bhutto’s murder case.

“Now, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has decided to become intervener in this case,” he added.

The meeting at Bilalwal House was attended, among others, by Faryal Talpur, Khurshid Shah, Yousuf Raza Gilani, Qaim Ali Shah, Nayyer Bokhari, Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah, Latif Khosa, Farooq Naek, Aitzaz Ahsan, Rahman Malik, Sherry Rehman, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Salim Mandviwalla, Nisar Khuhro, Chaudhry Manzoor, Naveed Qamar, Nisar Khuhro, Maula Bux Chandio and Farhatullah Babar.