Court declares Musharraf 'absconder' in Benazir murder case
ATC has sentenced CPO Saud Aziz and SP Khurram Shahzad to 17 years in prison.
RAWALPINDI (Dunya News/AFP) – Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Thursday has announced the verdict in former Prime Minister (PM) Benazir Bhutto murder case after nine years, and declared Pervez Musharraf absconder.
The court has also directed to forfeit the property of former president and military leader. ATC has sentenced former Rawalpindi CPO Saud Aziz and former Rawal Town SP Khurram Shahzad to 17 years in prison, and fined them Rs5 lac apiece. Both police officers have been arrested from Adiala Jail.
Furthermore, the court has released the other five suspects over lack of evidence against them who were nabbed in this case.
The ATC had on Wednesday reserved the judgment in the murder case of former PM. ATC Rawalpindi heard the case during which prosecutor of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Khawaja Asif and the lawyers of the suspects presented their arguments.
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack outside Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on December 27, 2007 while Musharraf was president. She was killed after addressing an election campaign rally in the city.
A trial of five suspects, who were arrested by police, started in February 2008 which was later handed over to FIA.
The ATC had indicted former president Pervez Musharraf in the case in February 2011, and in August the same year he was declared a proclaimed offender. A separate case was filed against his continuous absence.
- Mystery remains -
Senior police officer Khurram Shahzad was accused of hosing down the crime scene less than two hours after the killing -- an act the United Nations described in a report as "fundamentally inconsistent with Pakistani police practice".
Then-Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz was accused of both giving Shahzad permission to hose down the scene, and of refusing multiple times to allow an autopsy of Bhutto s body to go ahead.
They were each sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on one count and seven on another, with the sentences to run concurrently, and fined 500,000 rupees ($4,700), according to a court order.
Musharraf s government blamed the assassination on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement. He was killed in a US drone attack in 2009.
In 2010, the UN report accused Musharraf s government of failing to give Bhutto adequate protection and said her death could have been prevented.
The unanswered questions surrounding the case prompted a swirl of conspiracy theories.
Rashid A. Rizvi, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, alluded to them Thursday when he noted that the acquittals were "as much a conspiracy as her murder was".
The judgement, political analyst Hasan Askari told AFP, was unlikely to offer any clarity as it "has failed to answer the question of who actually murdered her".
"Were they Taliban or Musharraf," he said, adding the prosecution "could not provide any evidence ... So the mystery remains unsolved".
Musharraf is facing a string of cases connected to his 1999-2008 rule, and Pakistani courts have ordered his property confiscated on previous occasions.
He was acquitted last year in the 2006 killing of a Baloch militant leader, but four cases remain against him: one accusing him of treason for imposing emergency rule, one alleging the unlawful dismissal of judges, one over a deadly raid on the Red Mosque in Islamabad in 2007, and Bhutto s killing.
