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Pakistan orders arrest of police officers in Bhutto case

04 December 2010 23:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A Pakistani anti-terrorism court Saturday issued warrants for the arrest of two police officers for their "failure" to protect slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a prosecutor said, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.

Bhutto was assassinated in a gun-and-suicide attack after she addressed a political rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad, on December 27, 2007.

The court had issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of Rawalpindiâ€™s police chief at the time, Saud Aziz, and another senior police officer, Khurram Shahzad, special prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali said.

"I filed an application that the two police officers be summoned as accused in the case for their abetment in the crime and the court has accepted my request today," Ali told AFP.

"The officers failed to provide adequate security to Bhutto, denied her a post-mortem and were also responsible for hosing down the scene of the killing immediately after the crime," the prosecutor said.

The court will resume the hearing on December 11, he said.

Police said they had arrested five men in the weeks following Bhuttoâ€™s slaying and five other suspects were at large, of whom three had been killed, including Taliban and Al-Qaeda commander Baitullah Mehsud.

Mehsud, who had denied involvement in Bhuttoâ€™s assassination, was killed in a US drone attack in August 2009 in the lawless South Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan.

A three-member UN panel tasked with investigating Bhuttoâ€™s assassination reported in April that it believed the government of then military ruler Pervez Musharraf had failed to provide Bhutto with adequate protection.

The panel said its investigation had been hampered by intelligence agencies and other officials who had impeded "an unfettered search for the truth".

Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister, returned from exile two months before she was assassinated, to stand for election.

Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, led her Pakistan Peopleâ€™s Party to election victory in February 2008 and is now the head of state.