Benazir assassination case: Arrest of ex-Rawalpindi police chief ordered

An anti-terrorism court hearing the Benazir Bhutto assassination case issues no-bailable warrants for two officers.

RAWALPINDI: An anti-terrorism court hearing the Benazir Bhutto assassination case has issued no-bailable warrants for the former Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz and SP Rawal Town Khurrum Shahzad and ordered the authorities to produce them before the court at the next hearing.

Judge Rana Nasir Ahmed of the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC), Rawalpindi, observed  that charges against the two officers seemed to be correct.

The two police officials and other five arrested suspects will be formally charge-sheeted on December 11.

During the course of the hearing, special prosecutors Muhammad Azhar Chaudhary and Zulfiqar Ali Chaudhary maintained that the two  police officials were equally responsible for the death of the  former premier since they had failed to provide her adequate security.

The prosecutors filed statements of prosecution witnesses, the then SP Ashfaq Anwar, Fire Officer Ghulam Muhammad Naz, Rescue 1122 officer Dr Abdur Rehman and Dr Muddsaq Khan and said that reports compiled by the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) joint investigative team also “found them to be responsible for a security lapse and destruction of important evidence”.

The former police officials were booked under sections 119,109, and 201 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The court accepted the statements for evidence and issued the arrest warrants.

The court rejected bail to Sher Zaman, one of the five accused in official custody, on grounds that his bail application had been withdrawn.

The court permitted all five accused brief walks in sunlight. It also accepted the application of a young suspect, Aitzaz Shah, to continue his religious education inside the prison.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2010.