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India-Pakistan

Benazir killed for backing Lal Masjid operation

2012-02-13

ISLAMABAD — Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed because she supported the Lal Masjid operation, an anti-terrorism court was told in Rawalpindi on Saturday. Magistrate Taufiq Ahmed, who had recorded confessional statements of accused Rafaqat Hussain, Husnain Gul and Aitzaz Shah on February 13, 2008, said they told him that they wanted to kill only Benazir and because of the deaths of 23 other people in the attack, which they regretted, they would accept any punishment awarded to them. During the hearing of the Benazir assassination case in Adiala Jail, the magistrate read out the confessional statements before ATC Judge Shahid Rafique. According to the statements, the accused received Rs360,000 from Baitullah Mehsood while his associates, Abdullah alias Saddam and Qari Ismail, provided them two suicide bombers Saeed alias Bilal and Ikramullah. They purchased a pistol to be used by the suicide attacker because the plan was to kill Benazir near the stage during her rally in Liaqat Bagh on December 27, 2007. The accused, along with the suicide bomber, visited the venue on the night before the rally and took him to their residence in Quaid-i-Azam Colony in Rawalpindi. The accused brought the bomber to the venue early in the morning only to learn that because of tight security arrangements, it was difficult to get inside and near the stage. Then they deployed the bomber in front of the gate of Liaqat Bagh and another attacker Ikramullah at another exit point. After carrying out the crime, the accused reassembled near Fawara Chowk, Raja Bazar, and later went to their residence.

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India-Pakistan

Bhutto assassination suspects to be indicted next week

2010-11-16

[Emirates 24/7] A Pak anti-terrorism court will indict five suspected militants next week for their involvement in the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a prosecutor said Monday. If they don't get off for lack of evidence they'll still be alive and well ten years later, like Omar Saeed Sheikh... "The challan ... list of charges ... of the case was presented today in Anti-Terrorism Court-III in Rawalpindi," Chaudhry Zulfiqar, a special prosecutor representing the Federal Investigation Agency, told AFP. "The accused will be indicted at the next hearing on November 23," he said, adding that the trial would be held inside the main prison in Rawalpindi. The five men were all arrested in the weeks following Bhutto's slaying in a gun-and-suicide attack at a political rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city adjoining the capital Islamabad, on December 27, 2007. The prosecutor said five other suspects had been at large, of whom three had been killed, including Taliban and Al Qaeda commander Baitullah Mehsud. Mehsud, who had denied any involvement in Bhutto's assassination, was killed in a US drone attack in August 2009 in the lawless South Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan. Suspects Aitzaz Shah, Hasnain Gul, Abdul Rashid, Sher Zaman and Rafaqat Hussain were arrested and now face charges of "criminal conspiracy" for bringing the suicide bomber from a tribal area and keeping him at a house in Rawalpindi, Zulfiqar said. "They (the suspects) were the suicide bomber's handlers and did it at the behest of Baitullah Mehsud. They provided the suicide jacket to Saeed alias Bilal and brought him to Liaqat Bagh, where Ms Benazir Bhutto was to address a rally." Zulfiqar also said that the suspects had reconnoitred the Liaqat Bagh area before the attack. He said that the statements of 124 prosecution witnesses had been presented to the court and provided to the accused. Police arrested Shah and Zaman in the troubled northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan in January 2008 and the other three in Rawalpindi the following month. Gul and Rafaqat confessed in February 2008 to helping and sheltering the suicide attacker, to avenge the army's storming of a radical mosque in Islamabad that killed more than 100 people in July 2007. A three-member UN inquiry panel tasked with investigating Bhutto's assassination reported in April that it believed the Pakistani police's failure to probe the slaying effectively "was deliberate". The UN report also said that the government of then military ruler Pervez Musharraf had failed to provide Bhutto with adequate protection. The UN panel said its investigation was severely hampered by intelligence agencies and other officials who had impeded "an unfettered search for the truth".

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India-Pakistan

Baitullah ordered Benazir's murder, reveals FIA report

2010-06-19

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has completed its inquiry into the assassination of former prime minister and Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chairperson Benazir Bhutto, which blames Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud for orchestrating the attack. According to the text of the 39-page report obtained by Daily Times, the attack was planned in Akora Khatak by former students of Madrassa Darul-Uloom Haqqania. One of the prime suspects in the case, Hassnain Gull, has told investigators that Benazir was targeted due to her stance over the Lal Masjid operation. In the report, an ISI official confirmed that he had recorded a telephonic conversation in which Baitullah Mehsud himself issued instructions to some of the arrested terrorists to assassinate the PPP leader. A joint investigation team (JIT) of the FIA alleged that Inspector Kashif Riaz who was then the station house officer (SHO) of City Police Station Rawalpindi, "intentionally" did not complete the post-mortems of 24 people who were killed in the incident along with Benazir. The team further alleged that Superintendent of Police (SP) Ashfaq Ahmed who had been deputed at Liaquat Bagh on security duty that day went on a highway patrol instead along with other police personnel and later tampered with the case records. The FIA team has also alleged that Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Khuram Ishtiaq attempted to destroy the circumstantial evidences when he ordered police to hose down the crime scene. Darul-Uloom Haqqania: The report revealed that in May, 2010 a special team of the FIA had visited Darul-Uloom Haqqania in Akora Khatak. The in-charge of the seminary confirmed that accused Abdullah alias Sadam, Nadir alias Qari Ismael, Rashid Ahmed alias Rahim Tarabi and Fiaz Muhammad alias Kiskat were former students of that madrassa. Assassination: According to phone records, Saeed alias Bilal, Akramullah and Qari Ismael reached Rawalpindi on December 26, 2007 at about 9:00 pm. They were picked up by accused Rafaqat and Hassnain and taken to Rafaqat's house in Quaid-e-Azam Colony at 12am. The next day, the terrorists visited the Liaquat Bagh, and the planned route of Benazir Bhutto's convoy. They then went to Hassnain's house in Shah Jayyona Colony and obtained suicide jackets and weapons.

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India-Pakistan

FIA blames TTP for Benazir murder

2010-05-28

[Dawn] The Federal Investigation Agency submitted in a court here on Wednesday a supplementary investigation report on the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The report accuses the slain chief of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, of masterminding the murder. Anti-Terrorism Court-I Special Judge Malik Mohammad Akram Awan adjourned hearing till June 12 when the five arrested accused, Aitzaz Shah, Sher Zaman, Abdul Rasheed, Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat Hussain, will be formally charged. The FIA said in the report that a joint team was continuing its investigation into the hosing down of the crime scene, negligence, inadequate security measures and failure to conduct post-mortem on the body of Ms Bhutto. It will submit a report after completing the probe. The FIA launched a re-investigation into the assassination in August last year. The FIA said it had gathered more evidence against the accused and those declared offenders. It said that DNA tests first conducted by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and later by an FBI laboratory in the United States on the limbs of two alleged suicide bombers -- Saeed alias Bilal and Ikramullah -- and on their articles found in the house of Hasnain Gul confirmed that the two lived with Gul in Rawalpindi. Accepting the findings of Punjab police, the FIA said the record of a call made by arrested accused and data of two numbers involved in conversation about the success of Dec 27, 2007, suicide attack confirmed the alleged role of the accused. The report said that certain students of Madressah Darul Uloom Haqqania Akora Khattak in Nowshera had been founded involved in the assassination of the former prime minister. About the alleged negligence of police officers on duty, the FIA said it had carefully examined statements of the officials concerned and witnesses and also scrutinised the relevant record. Members of the joint investigation team have found Rawalpindi police officers responsible for security breach, including the absence of police escort officer of Benazir on her departure form Liaquat Bagh, and a series of lapses, including the destruction of vital evidence and failure to conduct the post-mortem. The investigators were yet to fix responsibility because of conflicting statements of the police officers concerned. The FIA said that a final report would be submitted after completion of these aspects of the investigation. The probe team is also examining the failure of federal and Punjab governments to provide sufficient security to Benazir Bhutto during the election campaign and take action against officers guilty of negligence.

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