Pakistan

Benazir murder case: Court admits bail request of accused police officials

Counsel of detained officers submits application saying the two men are innocent.

Obaid Abbasi January 04, 2011

The Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) Rawalpindi on Monday accepted a bail application filed by the accused police officials in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case for hearing.

Judge Rana Nasir Ahmed also issued a notice to the public prosecutor in the case, directing him to respond on January 7.

Malik Waheed Anjum, counsel for the former city police officer (CPO) Saud Aziz, and superintendent police (SP) Khurram Shahzad, submitted the application in which he maintained that both the police officials were innocent.

The main allegation levelled against them involves hosing down the crime scene and destroying evidence but the joint investigation team of the Federal Investigation Agency has failed to tell the court exactly what evidence was destroyed, said the counsel. All important evidence was collected before the hosing down of the crime scene, he maintained.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4th, 2011.

COMMENTS (2)

Waiting4Revolution | 13 years ago | Reply It is evident from the evidence provided by the defence lawyers in this case that the charges have no merit. This is just political show trial being coordinated by the PPP leadership so that they can tag someone in a position of responsibility with the charges and appease their voters. The only crime these two officers have commited is that they are the very few truly honest police officers without any political connections or corrupt money. Both officers and the rest of the Rawalpinding police staff performed admirabily to first provide the appropriate protection to Bibi at the rally as agreed with her security team and then also identify and arrest the only individuals who have been directly conected to the murder. Over three years since the murder all material progress in the investigation of bibi's murder has been made by the teams led by Saud Aziz - in fact the quality of their work was lauded by Scotland Yard. Meanwhile the so called Joint Investigation Team (JIT) have got no where with their half hearted attempts because they are just motivated by their political pay masters.

Majid Maqsood | 13 years ago | Reply Their bail should not be granted!

Replying to X