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.
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