LAHORE – A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench on Monday adjourned the hearing of bail petition of former Rawalpindi city police officer (CPO) Saud Aziz, accused of involvement in former PM Benazir Bhutto’s murder, until today (Tuesday).
Aziz’s counsel Khawaja Sultan, said that his client’s name is not included in the challan of the former PM’s murder and the UN commission’s report on Benazir’s murder. He said that the former Rawalpindi CPO was innocent. Sultan said that three allegations were levelled against Aziz, including avoiding post-mortem of the former PM’s body, washing the crime scene and taking her convoy by a risky route instead of the proper route.
Refuting the allegations, the counsel said that Benazir’s husband President Asif Ali Zardari did not allow the autopsy so how could Aziz go for the post-mortem of BB’s body? He said that it is true that the post-mortem of BB could have been helpful in investigation. Sultan said that according to law, if the relatives of a deceased did not allow autopsy, then police or other authorities concerned could not conduct post-mortem of any dead body.
The counsel said that investigation has proved that former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf was involved in the murder and army officials, acting on orders of Musharraf, issued orders to wash the crime scene after the blast. He said that MI Major Nadeem Ijaz had given orders on phone to wash the site.
Sultan said that it was on record that former Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud had given life threats to Benazir and it was the responsibility of Musharraf to ensure BB’s security but he deliberately left loopholes in the security perhaps to facilitate the attackers.
The counsel said that on December 27, 2007, before the blast, Superintendent of Police (SP) Khurram Shahzad was doing duty at Liaqat Bagh while Aziz was giving security duty for Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif who was also in the city that day.
He said that suspects arrested in the Benazir murder case have confessed to the crime and one of the accused, Rafaqat, in his statement had said that Aziz had no link with the plan of the attack or the attackers.
Afterwards, federation’s counsel Azhar Chaudhry told the court that according to the security plan prepared on December 25, 2007, Aziz’s duty was at Liaqat Bagh so his claim that he was giving duty for Nawaz was false. He said that the former Rawalpindi CPO could not change the security plan, as he knew that there were life threats to Benazir.
