PPP finally decides to become party to Benazir murder case

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The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has finally decided to become party to the Benazir Bhutto murder case after over five years since her assassination.

PPP Secretary General Latif Khosa has filed a request with the special court to provide documents pertaining to past proceedings in the case. The request also stated that the PPP had a right to become a party to the case.

“The Pakistan People’s Party has decided to prosecute the case of Benazir Bhutto, pending before Anti-Terrorist Court, Rawalpindi and also has authorised Secretary General Sardar Latif Khosa to engage any lawyer/ jurist,” said an official statement released by the PPP media wing.

This was decided through a resolution passed in a party meeting held the other day in Islamabad.

“The non-existence of security, exposing the former prime minister and making her a lame duck when a sniper shooter could fire from point blank range, the immediate hosing of the crime scene the non-conduct of postmortem, followed by official release of a tape and conclusive statement of a state official that it was terrorist attack and the registration of an FIR by police official as well as subsequent investigations, speaks volume of a planned masterminded murder, no less cruel and brutal than that of her father Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.”

The official statement added that it was thus imperative that the PPP took ownership and ensure that due punishment to the culprits was meted out, so that rule of law could prevail.

The official statement added that it was thus imperative that the PPP took ownership and ensure that due punishment to the culprits was meted out, so that rule of law could prevail.

In the press statement, the PPP further claimed that it was Benazir whose efforts bore fruit when the elections were announced, but upon her return, she was attacked at Karsaaz.

Talking to Pakistan Today, a senior advocate of the Islamabad High Court, Naiziullah Niazi said, “This could be an attempt to dump the case… as during its five-year term, the PPP did nothing to unmask the real culprits. Per my opinion, the PPP is now trying to ruin the case as it does not want to unmask the influential culprits.”

He said so far the prosecution had failed to bring any concrete evidence against the accused arrested in this case, who he said would walk free in the next few years.

An anti-terrorism court has indicted former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf and six others in the case.

Benazir was killed in a gun and bomb attack at an election rally in Rawalpindi in December 2007. The government of Musharraf had blamed her assassination on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).