RAWALPINDI: The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) hearing Benazir Bhutto murder case reserved its verdict on Wednesday after the counsels of the suspects completed their arguments. The verdict of the case, which has been going for the past nine years, is expected to be announced on Thursday, or on the first working day after the Eidul Azha holidays.
Benazir Bhutto, who was the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chief and a two-time former prime minister of Pakistan, was assassinated in a suicide attack at an election campaign rally at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.
A First Information Report (FIR) was registered over the incident on behalf of the state, following which the murder trial of five suspects began in February 2008. But when PPP won the general elections in 2008, the investigation was handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
During Wednesday’s hearing, FIA Public Prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar said that PPP leader Babar Awan was in Bhutto’s backup vehicle, which was under the control of party leader Farhatullah Babar and added that when the investigation was handed over to the FIA, the vehicle was recovered from Zardari House in Islamabad.
He also said that former President Pervez Musharraf’s had excused himself from appearing before the court citing death threats against his life from Al-Qaeda. “Of the 121 witnesses, only statements of 68 were recorded,” he informed the court further.
On Tuesday, suspects Hussain Gul and Rafaqat’s legal counsel Jawad Khalid told the court that the statements received from his clients hold Musharraf, among others, responsible for the crime.
He also claimed that there is no solid proof against his clients and there is a conflict between investigating officers’ statements and the weapons recovered from the crime scene. “This raises suspicion,” he remarked, adding that the court should show mercy towards the innocent, and highlighted that “the real culprits are not being punished for the crime.”
FIA Prosecutor Khawaja Asif accepted that there is no record of the suspects in the DNA report. He claimed that “Bhutto was targeted for deviating from US policy” and added that there were no explosives on the suicide jacket that the suspects had submitted for DNA testing.
Moreover, the suspect’s DNA report has not been submitted to the court, he said.
On the other hand, the counsels for the other two suspects, former Rawalpindi CPO Saud Aziz and former Rawal Town SP Khurram Shahzad, said that nobody can stop a suicide attacker but it can be investigated who facilitated the attacker.
Both Aziz and Saud are out on bail at the moment.
The counsel pointed out that the statements of those injured in the attack have not yet been recorded, and the post-mortem of the bodies was not done.
The court was also informed that out of the three mobile SIMs which were seized, two were not registered in any citizen’s name while the third SIM’s ownership was not investigated.
Former President Pervez Musharraf is also a suspect in the case, who has remained an absconder since the beginning. A separate case was filed against his continuous absence, the trial for which is yet to begin.
