ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari said on Friday the UN inquiry commission’s report had confirmed the apprehensions of the Pakistan People’s Party about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. He ordered that the ongoing criminal investigation be expedited.
In an official statement, issued almost 20 hours after the release of the UN report, the president said the PPP had been claiming that the Musharraf government was responsible — first, for the criminal neglect in providing security to Ms Bhutto and, second, by hushing up available evidence to cover up the crime.
Except for blaming the previous regime, the president did not mention any thing on the report’s findings that also mentioned failure of the PPP in providing a foolproof security cover to Benazir and conducting a result-oriented investigation to unveil faces despite a lapse of over two years.
The government also did not specify how the criminal investigation would be conducted and under whose supervision it would be carried out. It also did not give a timeframe about completion of the investigation.
Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the second joint investigation team was carrying out the criminal investigation and in the light of the UN report the pace would be expedited.
However, senior PPP leader Senator Safdar Abbasi stressed the need for setting up a special department, or an impartial body, to investigate the crime.
“I fear that if no criminal investigation is carried out today, there will be a strong reaction from the public, especially from PPP’s diehard workers who are desperately waiting for justice and punishment to those involved in the killing of their beloved leader,” he said.
Presiding over a meeting at the presidency before issuing the official statement, the president said: “The federal government under Gen Musharraf, although fully aware of and tracking the serious threats to Ms Bhutto, did little more than pass on those threats to her and was not proactive in neutralising them or ensuring that security provided was commensurate to the threats. The UN investigators’ concerns will be addressed in the fresh investigation already launched by the government last year.”
Mr Babar said the UN report would be examined by legal experts of the PPP. They would recommend to the party co-chairman necessary steps to be taken in the light of the report.
“Persons named in the report for negligence or complicity in the conspiracy will be investigated and cases will also be brought against them in the light of legal opinion,” he added.
Members of the media thought the government would issue an official reaction to the UN report or at least Interior Minister Rehman Malik would hold a press conference in the morning to answer dozens of questions about the UN report.
Many attempts were made to contact the interior minister, who was in charge of Ms Bhutto at the time of her assassination, but he did not attend telephone calls.
Officials told Dawn that all government quarters and authorities concerned had kept mum on the issue and sat together with Farhatullah Babar, who had been tasked with preparation of an official statement on the report.
Senator Abbasi, who was with Ms Bhutto in her vehicle at the time of the assassination, said that although the UN report did not impose any criminal liability on anyone, it provided leads to the government to initiate criminal investigation to unveil planners, perpetrators, abettors, financiers and attackers involved in the assassination.
Sources close to former Rawalpindi CPO Saud Aziz told Dawn that autopsy of Ms Bhutto could not be conducted on the directives of Mr Zardari.
But the UN report said the CPO on three occasions refused the request of doctors for carrying out post-mortem examination.
The sources said the CPO had insisted on her autopsy and written a letter to the higher authorities even from the Chaklala airbase, where Ms Bhutto’s body was sent for transportation to Ghari Khuda Bakhsh.
According to the sources, Mr Aziz had informed the authorities that the body was being taken without post-mortem. The UN report said: “CPO Saud Aziz’s role in this decision is controversial as many senior police officials emphasised that hosing down a crime scene was fundamentally inconsistent with Pakistani police practice.
“CPO Saud Aziz did not act independently in deciding to hose down the crime scene. He had received a call from Army headquarters instructing him to order the hosing down of the crime scene. The CPO was ordered to hose down the scene by Major General Nadeem Ijaz Ahmad, the then Director General of Military Intelligence.”
The sources said the CPO had rejected a perception that the site of her assassination had been washed on the directives of a hidden power. He was of the view that the crime scene was washed after collection of 23 different articles having direct links with the attack, including shells and bullets fired by a terrorist which were later matched by the investigators, the added.
The sources said the CPO had some objections to the UN report and claimed that the UN commission had not incorporated those details in its investigation report.
The UN report recalled that following Benazir’s assassination, the government had held a televised press conference, conducted by Brigadier Cheema, a spokesperson of the ministry of interior.
“The decision to hold the press conference was made by General Musharraf during a meeting on the morning of December 28 at a facility in General Headquarters known as Camp House. That meeting, at which General Musharraf was briefed on the intercept and on medical evidence, was attended by the directors-general of the ISI, MI and the IB.
“Brigadier Cheema was summoned to a subsequent meeting at ISI Headquarters and directed by the director general of the ISI to hold the press conference. In attendance at this second meeting, in addition to Brigadier Cheema, were Interior Secretary Kamal Shah, Director General of the ISI, Director General of the IB, Deputy Director General of the ISI and another ISI brigadier,” the report said.
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