Benazir murder case: Detained cops name senior army officials

Aziz, Shahzad admit having been in touch with intelligence officers.

RAWALPINDI: Detained ex-police officials of Rawalpindi Saud Aziz and Khurram Shahzad have admitted that they were in contact with four or five high-ranking army officials belonging to Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) during and after the gun-and-bomb attack on Benazir Bhutto, according to public prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar.

Talking to reporters outside the anti-terorism court where the Benazir Bhutto murder case was being heard, Zulfiqar said that the detained police officers had disclosed their names and anyone nominated by them would be included in the investigation.

According to him, the authorities had included 24 important personalities in the murder investigation and he said that their names would be included in the charge-sheet.

Zulfiqar said that the investigation was being run on scientific lines, adding that it was completely transparent.

Pledging to unveil people actually behind the Benazir assassination, he said: “We will not succumb to any administrative or political pressure in this regard.”

Highlighting various legal aspects of the case, he said that according to section 21-A of the Anti-Terrorism Act, the crime scene should have been preserved for at least 15 days, adding that these police officials  had washed away the crime scene just one hour and 10 minutes after the assassination.

This was a heinous act and amounted to eliminating important evidence, he said, adding that the local investigators had collected important evidence even after two and a half years of the incident, which were analysed by a modern forensic laboratory in the United States. “The report (in this matter) was made part of the charge-sheet.”

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) handed over on Thursday former city police officer (CPO) Saud Aziz and SP Khurram Shahzad on a six-day physical remand to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case.

Both police officials were produced before the ATC whose Judge Rana Nisar Ahmed rejected applications filed by the two officials in which they had urged it to send them to jail.

During the hearing, Public Prosecutor Chaudhary Zulfiqar submitted an application before the court for obtaining their 12-day-long physical remand. The court, however, granted a physical remand of six days.

Accusing the suspects of making false statements, the public prosecutor told the court that the physical remand was important for the recovery of mobile phones used by the police officials, adding that it would help investigators in determining the actual people behind the killing.

Call records, the public prosecutor said, would help investigators ascertain the nature of their communications.

However, Malik Waheed Anjum, the counsel for the detained police officials, told the court that there was no need for the physical remand because both officials had already handed over their mobile phones.

He told the court that this was a murder case and the FIA had no authority to investigate the matter, adding that their further interference would be illegal.

FIA’s joint investigation team was an independent body comprising officials of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and other departments concerned. Only this body had a legal authority to investigate them, the legal counsel of the police officials told the court.

According to him, anyone nominated by the suspects would be taken into custody.

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