ISLAMABAD – The recovery of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s BlackBerry phones after more than three years of her death and that too from Bilawal House, has raised many questions as when the Scotland Yard team had asked for them, no one had provided these phones to the investigators.
More intriguing is the fact that it was in the knowledge of President Asif Ali Zardari where these phones were as he had admitted this while addressing the PPP’s CEC meeting on Friday when he said he had given these non-functional phones to the staff of Bilawal House.
However, a source in the FIA told Pakistan Today that the two BlackBerry phones would not help the investigators in identifying the people who had contacted Benazir before her assassination because the FIA lacked the equipment to retrieve the data from them.
These phones were sent to the FIA’s forensic laboratory at its headquarters.
“The FIA forensic laboratory has no facility to retrieve the messages or emails made and received on these phones. So, the recovery of these phones will not help the investigation,” he said.
He said the information from the phones could only be retrieved if they were sent to the manufacturer in Canada. “No one can read BlackBerry messages until the company provides the password,” the source said.
However, FIA Director General (DG) Waseem Ahmad said the agency had all the necessary equipments to read BlackBerry messages. Asked what kind of information had been retrieved by the FIA team from the phones, he said, “It is very sensitive and we are not in a position to disclose it.”
An expert, however, said if the phones had been extensively used during the period after her death, the previous data might have been deleted or overwritten.
