General (retd) Musharraf to be questioned in Ms Bhutto's murder ...Dec 25, 2010 ... General (retd) Musharraf to be questioned in Ms Bhutto's murder .... A Joint Investigation Team formed to investigate the Benazir case had ...
www.middleeasttransparent.com/spip.php?page=article&id... - Cached
General (retd) Musharraf to be questioned in Ms Bhutto’s murder Amir Mir
Saturday 25 December 2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAHORE: On the eve of the third death anniversary of the former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, falling on December 27, the governmental agencies probing her 2007 murder have decided to expand the scope of their investigations with a view to unveil some new faces from the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which have so far been out of picture.
Well placed government sources in Islamabad say the decision has been taken after two senior arrested officers of the Punjab Police told their investigators that the day Benazir Bhutto was killed in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, they were working under the command of some senior ISI officials who were considered close to the then President General Pervez Musharraf. The Pakistani Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has subsequently sent a questionnaire to Musharraf to give his version in connection with the murder. One such question pertains why he did not provide adequate security to Bhutto despite her having expressed fears about threats to her life.
The FIA has already obtained six days physical custody of the former chief of Rawalpindi city police Saud Aziz and his assistant Khurram Shahzad to recover the cellphones they were using on the day Benazir was assassinated. The two former police officers were taken into custody on December 22, 2010 after a trial court in Rawalpindi hearing the Bhutto murder case cancelled their pre-arrest bail. The arrested officers had informed the investigators that four officers of the ISI and military intelligence had been in contact with them. But the investigating agencies have not yet made public their names because it was yet to be ascertained in what context they were in contact with the accused. The FIA investigators said in the trial court that forensic tests of the cellphones were needed to ascertain who had been in contact with the two police officers on the day of the assassination. The data will help them to know if other elements were also involved in the murder.
Meanwhile, it has now transpired that the all-powerful Pakistani military establishment reacted strongly to the United Nations Commission report on Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, issued in April 2010, and forced the PPP government to write a letter to the UN to reopen the inquiry. According to the Pakistani media reports, the army had termed the report a “bid to malign the national institution” and prepared a detailed reply addressing all aspects of the report. The reply was presented to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani who was asked to send it to the UN to record the country’s protest. The inquiry was financed by the Pakistan government which paid $5 million to the United Nations.
Approached for comments, Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas agreed that the military had some reservations on the report because it went beyond the mandate of the UN commission. “We have conveyed our reservations with special reference to security related issues to the government and asked it to record protest with the UN,” Gen Abbas said. The military believes that the UN Commission had touched some issues which had nothing to do with the assassination. During several visits of the three-member UN commission to Pakistan, its members called on top military, civil officials and politicians, including Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ISI Director-General Lt-Gen Shuja Pasha and recorded their statements. He said there was hesitation in the military over the UN commission’s demand to meet top ranking officials of services but it was accepted to avert a negative impression that the military had some concerns over such meetings.
While convincing the government to register a protest with the UN on the report, the Pakistani military high command had maintained that the world body actually went beyond its mandate by accusing ISI of conducting covert operations in India and Afghanistan. The commission also accused former director-general of Military Intelligence, Maj-Gen Nadeem Ijaz, a close relative of some Musharraf, of being involved in hosing down the assassination site within 40 minutes after the killing. The issue of hosing down the site and alleged involvement of some top military officials remained a topic of intense discussion for many weeks and Prime Minister Gilani formed a three-member committee headed by Cabinet Secretary Chaudhry Abdul Rauf to look into the matter.
The committee in its report, which has not been made public, gave a clean chit to top military and police officials. Some other findings opposed by the military are: “General Musharraf also had the full support of what is known in Pakistan as the ‘establishment’, the de facto power structure that has as its permanent core the military high command and intelligence agencies, in particular, the powerful, military-run ISI as well as Military Intelligence (MI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB).”
“The capability of the establishment to exercise power in Pakistan is based in large part on the central role played by the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies in the country’s political life, with the military ruling the country directly for 32 of its 62 years as an independent state. General Musharraf finally stepped down as Chief of Army Staff (COAS) on November 28, 2007, handing the post over to his hand-picked successor, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. This did not, however, change the military nature of the regime.”
The report blamed Musharraf and the military establishment for removing Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. The UN in its response to the letter sent by Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi ruled out the reopening of the inquiry and set aside Islamabad’s objection. Mr Qureshi’s letter said the UN commission’s observations about the Pakistan Army and the ISI were not based on evidence. He said the UN report had a serious flaw because the commission had failed to approach third party states or to provide some reliable information to unearth, if any, international linkages perpetrating, planning, financing and abetting Bhutto’s murder. A Joint Investigation Team formed to investigate the Benazir case had issued its report earlier this month again blaming the slain chief of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Commander Baitullah Mehsud, of masterminding the murder. However, the UN Commission had said that blaming the TTP leader for the assassination was a bid to divert the investigation from the right direction.
amir.mir1969@gmail.com
