PPP challenges trial court’s verdict on Bhutto’s assassination

Islamabad, September 18

The Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) on Monday challenged an anti-terrorism court’s verdict which had set five Pakistani Taliban suspects free and declared former military ruler Pervez Musharraf an absconder in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case.

Bhutto, 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.

The anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi had set free five Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) suspects citing lack of evidence. The court had also ordered authorities to confiscate Musharraf’s properties and declared him an absconder.

PPP’s senior advocate Latif Khosa filed three appeals in the Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court against the August 31 verdict.

In one of the appeals, he asked the court to try and convict Musharraf, in absentia, if he had failed to comply with the arrest warrant issued by the court.

Khosa said that Bhutto, in one of her letters, had declared that Musharraf would be held responsible in case she was killed.

In a second appeal, the PPP lawyer asked the court to change the sentence of two police officers into death sentence.

Saud Aziz was police chief of Rawalpindi Khurram while Shahzad was Superintendent of Police when Bhutto was assassinated in 2007.

In the third appeal, the PPP sought death sentence for the five TTP militants—Rafaqat Hussain, Husnain Gul, Sher Zaman, Aitzaz Shah and Abdul Rashid.

Benazir, daughter of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was the first woman prime minister of any Muslim country to be assassinated. — PTI