Ex-Rawalpindi officials included in Benazir case

RAWALPINDI: The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Rawalpindi on Tuesday accepted the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) petition to formally include the then Rawalpindi City Police Officer (CPO) Saud Aziz, and the then Superintendant of Police (SP) Rawal Town Khurum Shahzad in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case and adjourned hearing till December 4, before framing the charge-sheet against five other co-accused.

The court directed the government counsel Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali to argue on the FIA’s new petition from the next hearing.

ATC Judge Nisar Ahmed also accepted the application of one of the accused named Sher Zaman, and issued notices to the FIA’s joint investigation team to respond to it by the next hearing.

The court was also informed that the prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar Mehmood could not appear before the court because he was performing Hajj.

At the last hearing, the joint investigation team formally held Aziz and Shahzad responsible for hosing down the crime scene.

In a challan against the suspects formally submitted by Ali, the investigation team maintained that the challan against the remaining three suspects was stopped pending further investigations to ascertain their responsibility.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2010.