Come & face trial if you’re brave enough’: Zardari to Musharraf

Islamabad, September 22

Former Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday slammed Pervez Musharraf for accusing him of being responsible for the killing of his wife Benazir Bhutto, saying the former dictator should return and face courts if he is “courageous enough”.

Yesterday, Musharraf claimed that Zardari was responsible for the killing of the country’s first woman prime minister Benazir and said the former president gained the most from the assassination of the country’s first woman prime minister.

Zardari, 62, the co-chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), said: “Me and Benazir were blamed (by Musharraf) for Murtaza Bhutto’s murder. History is full of such accusations,” the Express Tribune reported.

“The politics of accusations has been decade-long; if Musharraf is courageous enough, then he must appear before the courts,” he said.

Meanwhile, Benazir’s daughters also hit out at Dubai- based Musharraf, calling the former dictator a “murderer” and “coward”.

Her younger daughter Aseefa Bhutto Zardari said in a tweet that she was “disgusted and appalled by media houses that are giving attention to this murderer, who ran away”.

“Blaming the victim. #ShameOnMusharraf,” she said in another tweet.

Benazir’s elder daughter Bakhtawar slammed Musharraf in a series of tweets.

“Musharraf should quit talk shows and come talk in the courts of Pakistan. Coward. #ArrestMush #BlamingTheVictim,” she said in a tweet.

“... and he ran away crying like a coward. Musharraf too busy on golf courses please come to Pakistan and face real courts #ArrestMusharraf,” she said.

Bakhtawar also retweeted her sister Aseefa’s tweet: “Disgusted and appalled by media houses that are giving attention to this murderer, who ran away. #Shame #ArrestMusharraf”.

The 54-year-old PPP chief and a two-time prime minister was killed along with more than 20 people in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh during an election campaign rally on December 27, 2007.

Former president and army chief Gen Musharraf, who was last month declared a fugitive by an anti-terrorism court which ordered seizure of his property in the Bhutto murder case, accused PPP co-chairman Zardari of “having the most to gain from Benazir Bhutto’s murder” in a video posted on his official Facebook page yesterday.

“Asif Ali Zardari is responsible for the Bhutto family’s demise and is involved in the deaths of Benazir and Murtaza Bhutto (Benazir’s brother),” he had said in an address to the three Bhutto-Zardari children, the Bhutto family and the people of Sindh.

Musharraf, 74, who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has been living in Dubai since last year when he was allowed to leave Pakistan on the pretext of medical treatment. — PTI