Rejecting pleas of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC-I) on Tuesday ordered a retrial of Benazir Bhutto’s murder case following the indictment of main accused former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf.
The former president, who was arrested by FIA on April 26, is on bail against two surety bonds of Rs one million each in the murder case of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and has exemption from court attendance due to security concerns.
On June 25, the FIA submitted a final challan against Musharraf before the court, declaring him the ‘prime accused’ in the light of investigation carried out in the case. The ATC indicted Musharraf in the murder case on August 20.
Announcing the judgment, which was reserved on September 17 after hearing arguments of all the parties concerned, ATC Judge Chaudhry Habibur Rehman ordered FIA to reproduce prosecution witnesses before the court for recording their statements on October 8 and adjourned the hearing until date.
On the last hearing, FIA’s Public Prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar and PPP’s senior lawyer Sardar Abdul Latif Khosa had pleaded to advance the case proceedings without any further delay, as its retrial would be tantamount to wastage of time.
Azhar was of the view that around 23 witnesses had so far recorded their statements before the court and they could be summoned for cross-questioning again, but a retrial of the case would be “wastage of court’s time, money and beneficial to the accused”.
Sardar Abdul Latif Khosa had contended that that PPP was not in favour of the retrial as the case had been lingering on for over five years.
He said the proceedings be advanced at fast pace for early disposal of the case.
Ilyas Siddique, counsel for Musharraf, had contended that according to law, there should be retrial of the case after the arrest of Musharraf so that witnesses’ statements could be recorded in the presence of all the accused.
Malik Rafiq, counsel for former police officials Saud Aziz and Khurram Shahzad, had pleaded that it was a known practice that whenever the main accused was arrested in any case, retrial was initiated.
He had held the previous government of PPP responsible for inordinate delay in the trial.