Benazir assassination: ATC says govt can make probe public

Trial court says govt does not need court’s permission.

RAWALPINDI:

An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC), which has on trial five accused arrested in connection with the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, has allowed the federal government to make public the investigations and trial proceedings in the case so far. 

An application was filed by the government, through Special Public Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, urging the court to give permission to make all investigations carried out by the joint investigation team and the trial proceedings so far public.

However, disposing of the application, ATC-I Special Judge Chaudhry Habibur Rehman said that the government did not need the court’s permission for such actions.



Five men – namely Aitzaz Sherazi, Abdul Rasheed Turabi, Sher Zaman, Rafaqat Hussain and Hassnain Gul – have been kept in Adiala Jail over charges of involvement in the suicide attack that killed the former prime minister in 2007.

As many as 12 people, including former president Pervez Musharraf, had been declared proclaimed offender in the case by the trial court.

Two police officers, former CPO Rawalpindi Saud Aziz and SP Rawal Town Khurram Shahzad, had obtained post-arrest bails from the Lahore High Court after they were arrested for not providing required security and allegedly destroying important evidence.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2012.