Category — Pak judiciary

ISLAMABAD: The government will facilitate the judiciary if it decides to summon former president Pervez Musharraf, Law Minister Babar Awan said on Wednesday.
Winding up the debate on the president’s address to the joint session of parliament in the Senate, he said, “The government will not create any hurdles in the way of the apex court if it summons Musharraf in connection with the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).” However, he said the government was not ready to violate the constitution and the law pertaining to “certain issues”.
In his speech, the law minister praised the president, saying that Zardari’s third address to parliament was proof that the roots of democracy were being strengthened in the country.

He said the presidential address was a road map for the government and that following the map would result in progress on the country’s political, economic and democratic agenda.

Appear in court: “The Pakistan People’s party (PPP) believes in accountability, but it should be across the board and must not result in political victimisation… it should not be for a specific person or party,” the law minister said, adding that he would appear before the SC on March 25 to present the government’s point of view on the implementation of the NRO, which reflects the respect that the government has for the judiciary.

Two offices: Defending the president for holding two offices, the law minister said there was nothing in the constitution that suggested that more than one office cannot be held by a president.
The law minister condemned the competition of the blasphemous cartoons held by some foreign countries, saying the government would take up the issue at an international level. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\05\20\story_20-5-2010_pg1_3

Musharraf says he will return before next election
WASHINGTON, May 19: Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has said that he will return to Pakistan before the next elections.
At a news conference in Washington, the former military ruler also launched a group called Friends of Pakistan First, which included delegates from 26 US states.
The group will provide “financial, technical and intellectual” support to Mr Musharraf’s campaign for re-launching himself into Pakistani politics without the military’s backing.
“I have decided to return to Pakistan and participate in politics,” he told the briefing. “I have not fixed a date yet but there is a desire to return before the next elections, whether they are end-term or mid-term.”
The former military ruler disagreed with suggestion that his bid to re-launch himself would fail because he did not have enough political support in the country and also lacked an effective political institution to back his move.
“I do not overestimate myself but underestimation is also wrong,” he said. “I do not know why Imran Khan failed and I do not believe in such comparisons. But I think I can succeed.”
The former military strongman said that he already enjoyed some popular support, which he hoped would expand when he returned home.
“There are MPAs, MNAs and senators who already support us. And they will join our group when it is formally launched in Pakistan,” he said. www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/musharraf-says-he-will-return-before-next-election-050.

The sordid details of the Bank of Punjab (BoP) scam and its former president Hamesh Khan’s arrest and deportation to Pakistan from the US have, among other things, exposed the culture of corruption rampant in Pakistani society. The PML-N and PML-Q have been at each other’s throats since the whole saga unfolded. Mr Khan himself is a very shady character, thus it is pertinent that NAB thoroughly investigate him and bring him to task. The involvement of the Chaudhrys in the BoP-Harris Steel Mills scandal involving Rs 9 billion cannot be ruled out since they were in power back then, but Mr Khan’s revelations about the Sharifs should not be taken lightly either. Why did the Sharifs want an ‘unsecured loan’ worth millions of rupees? If a common man requests such a loan, he would be laughed out of the bank. The alleged demand by the Sharifs points to a pattern, that of politicians securing such loans easily. Such practices are not just limited to the civilians; military dictators are guilty of the same — exploiting public office for private gain. Unfortunately, Pakistan has become a state where any violation can be committed with impunity and the violator can go scot-free if he has sufficient links in the right quarters. Institutionalised corruption needs to be quashed if we are to progress.

Pakistan still needs to define itself and devise a process of governance. Our political culture of the last 60 years is nothing but a recipe for disaster. Corruption reigns supreme in the country, from the bottom to the top echelons. The culture of ‘connections’ is rampant in the country. Nothing is done on merit. All the hiring and firing, especially in the government sector, is done on the whims of the top bosses. This is either done to appease the party ‘loyalists’ or award monetary and/or other benefits. Backhanders rule our bureaucracy and political set-up.

The Pakistani nation is forced to have ignorant ‘leaders’ who are mostly feudal landlords-turned-politicians. Extortion, bribery, kickbacks and political handouts are the usual tools used by these high-ups in order to achieve and then maintain power. Pakistan is listed among the most corrupt countries in the world, all thanks to our ‘leaders’, be they from the military or political class. It is said that corruption is a reflection of the behavioural patterns and social values of a society. The only way to bring about a change in the system is to bring down the level of corruption. Pakistan’s economy is in dire straits due to political and economic instability. The anti-corruption mechanism in Pakistan has failed every time. Unchecked corruption can destroy the moral and political fibre of a country. It destroys people’s confidence in the existing political and social order. Therefore it is essential that those involved in any form of corruption be taken to task so that others do not follow in their footsteps. The corruption crisis must be tackled openly by all. The government should invite every citizen to unite with it in a determination to rid our country of the corruption that has destroyed our country’s economic and social progress at home and marred our international image abroad.

Hamesh Khan needs to be punished for his role in the BoP scam while the high-ups involved in it should also be brought to book without discrimination. The ends of justice must be served without fear of retribution.http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\05\18\story_18-5-2010_pg3_1

SOMEHOW for all the signs that there could be no escape from implementing the NRO verdict, the government keeps prevaricating. The Prime Minister who, being the chief executive is duty bound to ensure that the court orders are carried out, is the main government functionary trying to find grounds for the futility of doing so. Speaking to the office-bearers of the Lahore Press Club, who called on him on Sunday, he seemed to advise the Supreme Court to summon the NRO architect, meaning thereby General Musharraf, without realising that the judgement already puts him in the dock for transgressing the limits of Article 6 of the Constitution. It would be interesting to recall that it was the PPP government that sent him abroad after giving him a grand guard of honour.
Mr Gilani had better ask his Law Minister to approach the apex court to summon Musharraf before it. He should also keep in mind that the beneficiaries of the bad law cannot be left out of the loop of accountability. Besides, as Mr Gilani himself stated, outside forces were behind the shameful NRO deal i.e. the Americans, British and some of our friends in the Gulf and that also makes them architects. He would have to spell out how to deal with them.
The Prime Minister told the LPC members that the Federal Law Minister would explain the government position to the Supreme Court. Mr Babar Awan has been known to the world for making the angriest and most questionable remarks about the area of competence of the court and the non-feasibitily of implementing its judgement, and it would be quite interesting to see how he faces the Bench. Mr Gilani’s mantra of ‘respect for the judiciary’ has assumed a funny ring now since the only thing that this could imply is that he is faithfully and honestly obeying its orders!
The reality speaks differently. His paying lip service, while effectively defying them despite the fact that the responsibility under the Constitution devolves on him, does not exonerate him. Besides, the despatch of PM’s Advisor on Information Technology to Switzerland raises many an eyebrow. That Mr Gilani should be sending him there, it seems, to find how the Swiss courts would react in case the government were to write a letter to them to reopen the cases against President Zardari, is highly unbecoming, to say the least.
At the same time, PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif, in an address at London, has talked of attempts at creating conditions that could result in a clash between the government and the judiciary. He named both Zardari and Gilani as being equally responsible for ensuring accountability of the NRO-affected people. The upshot of the scenario, which reeks of scandalously undemocratic ways of saving the skin of the plunderers of national wealth, is that the Supreme Court’s verdict must be studiously followed in an attempt to cleanse the body politic of corruption, if we want to see the country flourish.
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Editorials/18-May-2010/The-NRO-debate

Across fields of cotton and baked mud in the village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in southern Pakistan rises a white marble mausoleum with Mughal-style cones that shim-mer in the heat. Inside lie four bodies — a father and his three children — all murdered over a 30-year span. The father was hanged by a military dictator, one son poisoned and one son shot, both by unknown assailants. The daughter was still building the mausoleum when she, too, was assassinated. Her killing was captured on live TV, yet who did it remains a mystery, as well as how.
Benazir Bhutto was Pakistan’s most important political figure, the leading female politician in the Islamic world, an Oxford and Harvard graduate who was the West’s best hope of tackling terrorism. Yet 2½ years on, and despite a $5m United Nations commission of inquiry, her murder remains unresolved.
Almost every Pakistani has a theory about who did it; practically nobody expects to find out. Pakistan’s history is dotted with unexplained political assassinations, but this time there was an unexpected twist. Bhutto’s widowed husband ended up as president, with all the government apparatus at his disposal. One might think that for once there was a good chance of establishing a culprit. Instead he had called in the UN to investigate, claiming “This thing is bigger than us.”
I had my own reasons for wanting answers. I’d known Bibi, as friends called her, since 1987, when her kind wedding invitation to a 21-year-old led to me falling in love with her country and starting a life as a foreign correspondent, covering both her spells as prime minister. I was with her on the truck in Karachi the first time they tried to kill her: two bombs killed 150 people, but she survived.
Ten weeks later, just after 5pm on December 27, 2007, they succeeded. As Bhutto left an election rally in Liaquat Park, Rawalpindi, she stood up through the sunroof of her armoured car to wave. Moments later she was dead, blood gushing from a wound to her temple, as a suicide bomber exploded himself in the crowd.
Bhutto’s action had been foolhardy when she knew there were people out to kill her, and her death sadly unsurprising in a family that has sacrificed everything for politics. What was less explicable was what happened next.
“Everything was manipulated,” says Athar Minallah, a leading lawyer who sits on the board of the Rawalpindi hospital where Bhutto was taken. “The evidence was washed away and no autopsy or investigation allowed. As a lawyer I can’t come to any conclusion, but it’s all too sinister to believe there wasn’t mala fide in this.”
In the 20 years I knew Benazir I had been both captivated by her and infuriated by her, once even deported by her. But I had also personally witnessed the lengths gone to to stop her by what she called “the Establishment”, the old guard of Pakistan’s military and intelligence, which at the time of Bhutto’s death had ruled the country for 32 of its 60 years. Despite being warned off by friends in the Pakistani media, I travelled from London to Dubai, Karachi to Kabul, Waziristan to Washington, asking questions from those involved, many of whom had never spoken out before.
If ever there was a death foretold, this was it. Bhutto’s days were numbered from the time she decided to end eight years in exile in Dubai and return home, following a deal with President Pervez Musharraf backed by the US and Britain. Under the deal, corruption charges against her, her husband and senior members of her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) would be dropped, enabling them to contest elections. In return they would allow Musharraf to remain president. But neither trusted the other, and the military ruler had sworn he would never allow her back in power.
“We might as well have painted a bull’s-eye target on her head,” admitted a British Foreign Office minister involved in the negotiations.
Her closest friends begged her not to go back. “I said, ‘You’ve been prime minister twice, why do this?’ ” said Peter Galbraith, a former UN envoy to Afghanistan, who had been a friend since 1969, when a primly dressed Bhutto arrived at Harvard aged16 and went to dinner at his parents’ house.
Mark Siegel, a Democrat strategist who co-wrote her last book, said goodbye to her in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in Washington. As he turned back to wave, he recalled the scene in The Graduate of a rain-soaked Anne Bancroft standing bereft after realising that her lover, Dustin Hoffman, is in love with her daughter. “I had this terrible feeling,” he said.
In London before her return, Bhutto told me she knew the risk. “I know there are people who want to kill me and scuttle the restoration of democracy,” she said. “But with my faith in God and the people of Pakistan, I’m sure the party workers will protect me.”
She then flew to Dubai to say goodbye to her daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa. On October 16, the day before she was due to fly to Pakistan, she was warned by UAE and Saudi intelligence of a plot to kill her. She immediately wrote to Musharraf naming three suspects: Pervez Elahi, then chief minister of Punjab; General Hamid Gul, the retired head of Pakistan’s military intelligence, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI); and Brigadier Ejaz Shah, the former head of the Intelligence Bureau (IB). But there was no changing her mind. “The time of life is written and the time of death is written,” she insisted.
When the plane landed at Karachi and Bhutto came down the steps, she could not hold back the tears. Huge crowds had lined the streets. Waving from the top of a special bus, she was transformed, her face alive, so different to the Bhutto of the last few years in exile, gorging on ice cream and reading self-help books. I understood then why she had gone back.
But her security people were worried. The jammers promised by the Pakistan government to impede remote-control bombs were not working. Bhutto refused to go behind the special bulletproof screen in her bus that would separate her from her people. Eventually, she went to the armoured compartment on the lower deck to work on her speech. It was nearly midnight and we had been on the bus nine hours when the first blast came, throwing us to the ground. Moments later came a second, much larger, blast. There was silence, then screams, sirens and little pieces fluttering down like black snowflakes: bits of charred skin.
Bhutto had no doubt who was behind it. She emailed Mark Siegel on October 26: “Nothing will God-willing happen. Just wanted u to know if it does I will hold Musharraf responsible.”
She also called Musharraf. “He told her, ‘I warned you not to come back until after the elections,’ and threatened her, ‘I’ll only protect you if you’re nice to me,’ ” said Husain Haqqani, a former Bhutto aide who was living in the US and is now Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington.
Instead of stepping up her security, it was reduced. She was even told not to travel in vehicles with tinted windows, as this was against the law of the local government.
She appealed to the American and British officials who had helped negotiate her return. “I called everyone,” said Haqqani. “I even got the US ambassador in Pakistan, Anne Patterson, to visit her.” It did not go well. “Patterson wasn’t nice to her,” said Bhutto’s cousin and confidant, Tariq Islam. “She harped on, ‘You must not talk against Musharraf.’ The Americans never trusted her. It was a marriage of convenience.”
In November, Bhutto returned to Dubai for a few days. Her daughters believe she knew then she would not see them again. “She kept on telling us life is in God’s hands,” said her youngest, Asifa, interviewed for Bhutto, a film about her mother’s life that opens in June. “It was going to be my 18th birthday in January, and she said she wanted to wish me happy birthday in advance,” said her older daughter, Bakhtawar. “I said, ‘Don’t wish me in advance, wish me then.’ ”
The next morning, after her mother left, she found a be-ribboned box containing a silver jaguar head on a pendant. A note wished her “Happy birthday, all my love, Mummy”.
Back in Pakistan, on December 26, the day before the Rawalpindi rally, she addressed a public meeting in Peshawar and a suspected suicide bomber was caught trying to get in. That night her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, called her, begging her to let him campaign in her place. “I pleaded with her, ‘You stay home and I’ll go do the rallies. You’re the mother.’ But she said, ‘What can I do? I have to go and meet my people.’ ”
In the early hours of December 27, she was visited by General Nadeem Taj, the head of the ISI, the agency that in the past had done all it could to stop her becoming prime minister, from printing propaganda leaflets to creating a new political party. What he told her is unknown. Despite the late night, Bhutto was up early sending emails, including one to Peter Galbraith asking him to contact his friend, the Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, to send some of his jammers.
Back at her Islamabad home for a light lunch, she called her political secretary, Naheed Khan, to sit with her. Naheed had worked for her for 23 years and accompanied her through beatings, tear gas and arrests. Bhutto told her some American politicians would be coming that evening. Convinced that Musharraf was planning to rig the elections, Bhutto had collected information of a secret ISI rigging cell based in a house in Islamabad, which she planned to present to the Republican senator Arlen Specter and the Democrat congressman Patrick Kennedy.
Around 2pm, the two women climbed into her armoured, white Toyota Land Cruiser with an entourage of five men, including Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who had led her party while she was in exile, and Senator Safdar Abbas, Naheed’s husband and also a long-time aide.
As they left manicured Islamabad for the dusty streets of Rawalpindi, passers-by waved at the motorcade. In front was a blue police van and a black Mercedes containing her security chief and other officials. Behind were two pick-up trucks of her bodyguards.
Once they reached Rawalpindi and saw people massing, Bhutto stood up as usual. “ ’Pindi was hard for her,” said Naheed. Her father was killed in ’Pindi jail and she was too much excited. It was a huge gathering, we weren’t expecting, and such a charged crowd.”
As they drove out of the back of the park with dusk falling, the gates were opened. The crowd flooded out and gathered round her chanting “Jiye Bhutto” [long live Bhutto], “wazir-i-azam Benazir” [prime minister Benazir]. She stood up, climbing on the seat so that she could be seen.
Then they heard shooting. “Suddenly I felt some pressure, she had fallen on me,” said Naheed. She sobs as she recalls cradling Bhutto’s bleeding head. “She was completely unconscious, her blood seeping over me. That scene is still going on in front of me two years on,” she said.
All those in the car, and her spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, in the car behind, insist that Bhutto fell first, then a bomb went off. “As soon as she ducked down, after three to four seconds there was a bomb blast,” said Naheed. Safdar checked Bhutto’s pulse. “There was nothing.”
A bodyguard shouted “Move the car!” but the left tyres had burst in the blast. The backup car had mysteriously disappeared, so the bodyguard carried her into Sherry Rehman’s 4×4 and they rushed to Rawalpindi general hospital.
“I thought she was already dead,” said Zahid, the driver, showing the back seat of the Jeep where the bloodstains are still visible. “She was unconscious and bleeding from the left side of her neck and top right of her skull.”
At the hospital, doctors tried to resuscitate her. Sherry Rehman describes the chaos of bloodied, injured and dead victims being brought in and party workers crowding the building. Rehman found Naheed and Makhdoom Fahim in a state of shock. “The hospital wanted us to get the body out,” she said. “The whole place was heaving with people. Makhdoom and I created a diversion by driving out so they could get the body out without supporters realising. It didn’t occur to us to demand the medical report. I was sure she was shot, I heard the shots, then our heads being shoved down in the drill we’d had since Karachi, then the boom of the bomb. We never thought anyone would contradict this.”
In Dubai, Bhutto’s family had been watching on television. “All we knew was something had happened,” said Zardari. “I said, ‘Arrange a plane.’ When I came back into the room, the TV was announcing she was dead.” Bhutto’s body was placed in a makeshift plywood coffin and taken to the nearby military airbase of Chaklala.
Around 1am, the family arrived, and both they and the coffin were flown to Moenjodaro in the southern province of Sindh, to drive through the night to Bhutto’s ancestral home town of Naudero. In keeping with the Muslim tradition, she was buried the next day.
On December 30, just three days after her death, Zardari summoned a meeting of the party’s central executive committee. He asked their son, Bilawal, to read out a handwritten letter from Bhutto to the PPP. It stated: “I would like my husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to lead you in this interim period until you and he decide what is best. I say this because he is a man of courage and honour.”
Zardari told me afterwards he had no idea she had drawn up such a will. “The day her remains came to Naudero, a person came from Dubai and said, ‘I have this document Madam left with me.’ ” He said he did not know the person.
It was dated October 16, two days before Bhutto returned to Pakistan. “That was the day she’d been warned not to go back,” Zardari said, “and she wrote that letter to Musharraf showing apprehensions about certain people.”
In a shrewd move, Zardari named their son, Bilawal, as co-chairman, adding Bhutto to his name to make him Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and said he would take over the leadership when he was old enough. Bilawal was then only 19, and starting his second term at Christ Church college, Oxford. He freely admitted he was more interested in Facebook and movies than politics.
Still in shock, nobody on the party’s executive questioned the document. Afterwards, Fahim, the party’s former leader, who had expected to take over, told me he was astonished that Bhutto would hand the party over to Zardari. Known in Pakistan as Mr Ten Per Cent, his alleged corruption was thought to be largely responsible for the demise of both Bhutto’s governments.
Torn apart with grief, Naheed was also too stunned to say anything. “She never mentioned it [the will] to me, nor had I seen it,” she told me.
Back in Islamabad, the Musharraf government appeared to be in panic. Within an hour of the attack the scene had been washed down with high-pressure hoses, wiping out almost all the evidence. Saud Aziz, then chief of Rawalpindi police, said he issued these orders after receiving a phone call from a close associate of Musharraf. The interior ministry said they were worried about “vultures picking up body parts”.
This was in stark contrast to what had happened after two assassination attempts on Musharraf in the same city, when the area had been sealed off for weeks.
With the country in chaos, there was an unseemly rush to announce the cause of death and to name an assassin. At 5pm on Friday December 28, less than 24 hours after her death, Brigadier Javed Cheema, the interior ministry spokesman, held a press conference. He said the hospital report showed Bhutto had been killed by striking the lever of the sunroof as she ducked to avoid the bomb. “There was no bullet or metal shrapnel found in the injury,” he said.
He also said intelligence services had intercepted a call from Baitullah Mehsud, head of the Pakistani Taliban, proving he was behind it. A transcript was later made available — though no audio tape — on which the militant leader is self-congratulatory and gives away his location. A week later, journalists including myself were called in to our respective embassies to be told that MI6 and the CIA had authenticated the transcript and were convinced Baitullah had carried out the attack. The former Pakistani cricket captain-turned-politician Imran Khan was incredulous. “The day after the murder they produce a tape of Baitullah saying, ‘I’m sitting here, tomorrow I’ll be having breakfast. Well done, boys.’ Is this a joke? The guy is being hunted down, on the run. Would he be talking like that?”
Baitullah insisted he was not responsible. “I strongly deny it,” he said via his spokesman, Maulvi Omar. “Tribal people have their own customs. We don’t strike women.”
In years of reporting on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, never once had I known them not take responsibility for something. Moreover, Bhutto had told me that after the Karachi attack Baitullah had sent a message saying: “Identify your enemy. I’m not your foe.”
Meanwhile, footage had emerged in which a clean-shaven man in dark glasses was clearly visible waving a gun and firing three shots. A TV station had filmed bullets lying on the ground. Other footage showed Bhutto’s chief bodyguard, Khalid Shahenshah, gesticulating strangely from the stage as Bhutto left.
Aside from Bhutto, 22 others were killed in the attack. Family members told Pakistani media that some had bullet wounds. But no autopsies were carried out, even though they are required by law.
I started my own investigation in the sprawling port city of Karachi on the basis that whoever had tried to kill her there on October 17 was probably the same person that eventually got her.
That bombing was Pakistan’s most lethal terrorist attack, yet I was shocked to find from the local police chief that there was no investigation under way. It wasn’t even clear whether it was a suicide bomb or a car bomb, though a retired army colonel who lived round the corner sent me photographs of a burnt-out car that had its chassis number scratched off so it could not be identified.
Many of those who died were “Martyrs for Benazir”, young party volunteers who formed a human chain round the bus and prevented the bomb getting nearer. One was 25-year-old Intukhab Alam. I went to see his widowed father, Mahmood Yunis, 70, in Muhammadi Colony, Liaquatabad, one of the poorest parts of Karachi. He cannot believe the government is not investigating Bhutto’s death. “My son was a small person, but she was a great leader,” he said. “No Zardari can take her place.”
Someone else with little time for Zardari is Benazir’s niece Fatima. It was eerie going to see her: she lives in 70 Clifton, the house of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, her grandfather and Benazir’s father. He was the first Bhutto to be murdered, hanged by his former army chief, General Zia, in 1979.
Fatima was just 14 in September 1996 when her father, Murtaza, the elder of Benazir’s two brothers, was gunned down on the street, along with six of his men. The murder scene was also washed clean before investigators could arrive.
Fatima and her stepmother, Ghinwa, Murtaza’s second wife, invited me to stay for lunch. They talked of the rivalry between Zardari and Murtaza, who they told me kept a cartoon of his brother-in-law genuflecting to the Sultan of Oman in the guest toilet. It is clear who his wife and daughter believe responsible for his death. “The orders could have only come from the highest levels,” said Fatima. Her Aunt Benazir was prime minister at the time.
Bhutto’s friends and family say she was devastated by Murtaza’s death. Her cousin Tariq Islam accompanied her to the morgue in Karachi. “We went to the cold room where his blood-soaked body was and she collapsed, put her head between his feet and cried and howled, ‘You’re my baby brother, don’t do this to me.’ ”
Bhutto, who was prime minister at the time, called in a Scotland Yard team to investigate and asked Islam to be the liaison person. “Even though it was her government, they were stymied at every turn,” he said. “They wanted to see the scene, but within hours it had been pressure-washed. They wanted to see the vehicle in which Murtaza’s body was flung and taken to hospital but were told it had been taken to a garage.”
Six weeks after the murder, a coup took place and Benazir was ousted as prime minister. Scotland Yard was sent home.
Zardari was detained for allegedly being involved in the murder, as well as a number of corruption cases. He was released from jail into exile in 2004 by Musharraf and acquitted on the murder charge in 2008 owing to lack of evidence.
Last December, 18 police officers also alleged to have been involved in Murtaza’s murder were all acquitted. Some had been highly promoted. “Shoaib Suddle, the police chief who was there on the night, was made head of the IB,” said Fatima. “Zardari’s defence lawyer in the case is now attorney general.”
Similarly, following Benazir’s death, nobody has lost their job despite clear lapses in security and failures to investigate. Bhutto’s security chief, Rehman Malik, who disappeared with the backup car, is now interior minister and Zardari’s closest adviser. “My enemies are talking nonsense that I ran away,” he said when I asked why he left the spot. “I wasn’t a security officer that I had to be there. I’m not a guard or a gunman.”
Musharraf’s interior secretary, Kamal Shah, is still in his post, though it was his ministry that put out the version of events Bhutto’s friends and family dispute. Saud Aziz, who ordered the roads to be washed, was transferred to Multan, the prime minister’s constituency, but was suspended last week following the UN report.
Then there is the unexplained shooting of Benazir’s bodyguard Khalid Shahenshah, who was also in the car the night of her killing. I tracked down his best friend, Mohammed Yarwar, a former US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent, who met me in a house full of caged snakes on a busy Karachi road. A student activist for the party, Shahenshah ran a grocery store in Connecticut and seems a strange choice as chief bodyguard. “We hung out in New York,” said Yarwar. “He had a connection with Zardari and got to know Benazir because he would drive her when she visited.”
Shahenshah was heading security at Bhutto’s residence in Karachi, Bilawal House, when, on July 22, 2008, Yarwar got a panicked call from one of his guards, who was outside his friend’s house. “He was screaming, ‘There’s firing going on!’ ”
The guard later told him that Shahenshah had arrived home and got out of his car outside the gate. A small car approached with three men inside who began firing. “They shot 62 rounds, of which seven bullets hit Khalid,” said Yarwar. The car was later abandoned. Yarwar denied rumours that it was a gangland killing. “There was no proper investigation,” he said. “People say he might have known something about Benazir’s death. If he did, he never told me: all he ever said was that she was definitely shot. But I don’t like it. I’ve quit the PPP. ”
Fear is tangible when I start asking about Benazir’s death, something the UN commission noted, describing themselves as “mystified by the efforts of certain high-ranking government authorities to obstruct access”.
In Rawalpindi I went first to Liaquat Road, where Benazir was killed. The spot is marked by a garish painting of her on a red background surrounded by what look like pink bathroom tiles. In front lay a dried-up wreath. Behind a few barricades was a cabin where five policemen were sitting around drinking tea under a lightbulb hanging from a wire.
When I started to take photographs they became animated, telling me to go away. They noted down my driver’s numberplate, after which he refused to take me anywhere else.
I hailed another cab to take me to Rawalpindi’s police headquarters and found the charming chief police officer, Rao Iqbal. When I asked what was the usual procedure after a bombing, he said: “Our priority is to get life back to normal and remove all the rubble, but after collecting the evidence, not before.” Why did this not happen after Bhutto’s death? “The orders may have come through the mouth of CPO Saud Aziz, but it was a government agency that ordered the washing, not a policeman,” he replied, adding: “In my view it should not have been washed.”
As a result, they collected only 23 pieces of evidence, in a case where there would normally be thousands. One of the pieces was her car, and that had also been washed of any evidence. The UN commission pulled no punches, stating: “The failure of the police to investigate effectively Ms Bhutto’s assassination was deliberate.”
Police did find the blown-off face of the suicide bomber, who they say was a 15-year-old boy, on a roof. And to my surprise they told me they have five suspects in custody picked up in 2008, and five more they plan to arrest. They believe they were recruited from madrasahs and part of a team sent to target Bhutto in different cities — but they did not seem to be interested in who had sent them.
The lack of evidence has made it very difficult to establish how Bhutto died. Under pressure, Musharraf called in Scotland Yard to investigate her death. They backed his government’s version that Bhutto died after hitting her head, rather than from an assassin’s bullet. Yet every single person in her car insists she fell before the blast.
I went to the hospital hoping to see Professor Mussadiq, who led attempts to resuscitate Bhutto. I was first refused entry, then told he was at the Holy Family hospital. When I got there, they told me he was not at work. Eventually I met one of the other doctors who attended her; he would only speak off the record.
“Our main concern was saving her life, not what caused the injury, because that is done in an autopsy,” he said. “We all thought she had been shot.”
Because she was an emergency patient, the medical team had made no official report, just clinical notes. They were horrified then when the interior-ministry spokesman held the press conference in which he cited their report, attributing the cause of death to hitting the lever of the sunroof.
“They were very perturbed,” said Athar Minallah, the lawyer who sits on the hospital board. “When they couldn’t revive her, they told the police chief three times there needed to be an autopsy. He was constantly on the phone to someone else and refused, even though by law it’s mandatory.”
If how Bhutto died cannot be properly established, it seems unlikely we will ever find out who did it. In August last year, Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban suspect, was killed by an American drone.
The person fingered by Bhutto, Musharraf, now lives in exile in London, accompanied everywhere by six Scotland Yard officers. Before Christmas I met him at a dinner at the home of a mutual Pakistani friend, where he lounged on the sofa, drinking whisky, smoking a fat cigar and handing out £50 notes to the singers.
When a reporter asked him if he had blood on his hands, he retorted that the question was “below my dignity”, going on to say: “My family is not a family which believes in killing people. For standing up outside the car I think she was to blame — nobody else. Responsibility is hers.”
The UN disagrees. “Ms Bhutto’s assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken,” states the report. Describing the government protection as “fatally insufficient”, they point out that there were few police present to guard her, and that those posted on roofs to watch for threats did not even have binoculars.
Ask most Pakistanis who killed Benazir and they ask who benefited. A Google search on Zardari turns up Zardari jokes, Zardari corruption, Zardari assets and Zardari killed Benazir as among the most common searches. Bhutto had told friends that she would not let her husband be involved in politics again. The plan was for him to stay in Dubai. They had lived separate lives for years. He argues this was because in 20 years of marriage, he spent 11 years in jail. But when he was released, instead of Dubai he went to New York, ostensibly for medical treatment.
Her closest friends say the will is in her writing, and they believe she wanted to keep the party in the family, in the South Asian tradition. “She thought it would split into factions otherwise,” said Bashir Riaz, who knew her all her life. But they are at a loss to explain why, when Zardari became Pakistan’s president in September 2008, he did not begin an investigation.
I put this to Zardari when I went to his house in Islamabad. “The stature of Bhutto called for an independent, transparent and above-board investigation so no accusation of bias could be made,” he said. “This is bigger than us.”
He showed me a framed copy of the will. “This was the joker in the pack,” he said. “Whoever killed her wanted a weak PPP minus Benazir. They thought they would get their own choice.”
His interior minister, Malik, claimed the government are now investigating and will soon release their own report. “We are after just one more person, then the circle will be complete,” Malik said.
“I don’t want nine people strung up to avenge her death — it’s the whole system,” said Zardari. “Only when we’re prospering and we’re Singapore will she be avenged.”
Fine words. Last week, Pakistan’s parliament voted to repeal a constitutional amendment used by military dictators to give themselves sweeping powers. But it remains a nation besieged by bombings and power cuts where militant leaders go free, even holding public rallies, and intelligence agencies make people disappear. When a government delegation went to Washington last month it was clear that the army chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani, was the real power. This is the same army whose generals suggested to Zardari last time Bhutto was prime minister that he replace her because they didn’t like saluting to a woman. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7111333.ece

By Sabir Shah in The News, Apr 25

LAHORE: As the 18th Amendment has apparently pitched the Pakistani parliament against judiciary, besides having divided the lawyers’ fraternity on the issue of separation of powers among the three branches of the government, a study of the American Judicial Review system shows that since the last 207 years, the US Supreme Court continues to constitutionally determine the validity and application of the laws passed by its country’s legislators.

According to Article III (Section 2) of the 1787 US Constitution, the Supreme Court enjoys both original and appellate jurisdiction on any law framed by the legislators sitting in the Congress and Senate.

While the judicial power of the US apex court extends to all cases, it even has the authority to decide how the Congress may actually mean or want the application of law otherwise made by it.

A history of Judicial Review in the US reveals that between 1803 and 1804, the Supreme Court had established its supremacy over both Executive and Legislative branches of the government by striking down their orders.

While the first US Supreme Court decision to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional came in the oft-quoted Marbury versus Madison case of 1803 during the reign of President Thomas Jefferson, the Court’s first decision to declare an Executive Branch action as unconstitutional was announced in the Flying Fish case of 1804.

In the Marbury versus Madison case, Chief Justice John Marshall struck down the unconstitutional acts of the US legislators, hence setting up a precedent that the arbiters had distinct judicial review powers to determine which laws the Congress actually intended to apply to any given case.

Meanwhile, the Flying Fish Case had involved an order issued by President John Adams in 1799 during America’s war with France, whereby the Navy was authorized to seize ships bound for French ports.

After a Navy Captain in December 1799 seized a Danish vessel called “Flying Fish,” pursuant to Adams’s order, the owners of the ship sued the captain for trespass in US Maritime court.

On appeal, Chief Justice Marshall rejected the captain’s argument that he could not be sued because he was just following presidential orders. The Court noted that commanders “act at their own peril” when they obey invalid orders, ruling that the US President’s order was outside his powers.

Within a couple of years, John Marshall again infuriated Jefferson by exonerating former Vice President Aaron Burr in a treason case framed against him at the behest of the Jefferson regime.

After passing these orders in quick succession, Chief Justice Marshall thus had to encounter an extremely harsh criticism from President Jefferson and the incumbent Congress legislators, compelling the most respected top judge in history to observe,” If Congress were to make a law not warranted by any of the powers enumerated, it would be considered by the judges as an infringement of the Constitution which they are to guard. Hence, the judges would declare it void. To what quarter will you look for protection from an infringement on the Constitution?”

The US Supreme Court then never looked back after issuing these two afore-mentioned historic verdicts.

For example, in the Sheldon versus Sill Case (1850) surfacing during President Andrew Jackson’s era, Chief Justice Roger Taney had taken the Congress head-on by holding that the legislators could not limit the subjects the Supreme Court may hear.

In the 20th Century, the US Supreme Court even dared the strongest regimes of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and George Bush Junior.

After the US, the country where Judicial Review powers are most extensively exercised is India.

The Indian Constitution seeks to ensure the independence of judges in various ways. Supreme Court Judges are generally appointed by a Collegium of sitting arbiters on the basis of seniority and not on political preferences.

The Supreme Court has special advisory jurisdiction in matters which may specifically be referred to it by the President of India under Article 143 of the Constitution.

The Indian Constitution vests in judiciary, the power to adjudicate upon the validity of all the laws. If the laws made by parliament violate any provision of the constitution, the court has power to declare such a law invalid or ultra vires of the Constitution.

The Indian Supreme Court judgment in the Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973 established the “Doctrine of Basic Structure.” According to this verdict, the Indian Constitution has certain basic features which hold a transcendental position and which cannot be altered either by the parliament or Supreme Court.

The judgment stated that although these amendments were constitutional, the court still reserved for itself the discretion to reject any changes made by the Parliament, through which the Constitution’s basic structure was altered.

Despite the fact that the Indian Supreme Court enjoys original, appellate and advisory jurisdiction, questions have been raised since 1951 about the scope of the constitutional amending process contained in Article 368 of the Indian Constitution.

After the courts had overturned state laws redistributing land from landlords on the grounds that the laws violated the land owners’ fundamental Rights, the Parliament passed the first Amendment in 1951, fourth in 1955 and 17th amendment in 1964 to protect its authority to implement land redistribution.

The Supreme Court countered these amendments in 1967 in the Golaknath versus State of Punjab case when it ruled that the Parliament did not have the power to abrogate fundamental rights, including the provisions on private property.

To counteract against the Golaknath case decision, former Premier Indira Gandhi then made a series of attempts through various constitutional amendments to establish Supremacy of Parliament over judiciary.

The Indian Supreme Court again declared that the Parliament could not use its amending powers to damage, emasculate, destroy, abrogate or alter the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution.

This decision is not just a landmark in the evolution of constitutional law, but proved a turning point in constitutional history.

In 1970, the Indian Supreme Court invalidated the government-sponsored Bank Nationalization Bill that had been passed by parliament, besides rejecting the presidential order of September 1970 which abolished the titles, privileges and privy purses of the former rulers of India’s old princely states.

In reaction to Supreme Court decisions, the Parliament empowered itself to amend any provision of the constitution, including the Fundamental Rights.

In Indira Gandhi versus Raj Narayan case of 1975, the Supreme Court applied the theory of basic structure and observed that the amending power of the parliament only destroyed the ‘basic feature’ of the constitution.

But despite being bogged down during the Indian Emergency period of 1975-77, in which Indira Gandhi had even tried to dishearten the highest judiciary by appointing a junior judge as the chief justice superseding senior judges like Justice Khanna, the Apex Indian Court did not cease to exercise its power of Judicial Review.

For example, in the Minerva Mills case of 1980, the Indian Supreme Court again struck down an amendment on the ground that destroyed the basic structure of the Constitution.

In Sawhney versus Union of India case, popularly known as the Mandal Commission case, the Supreme Court ruled that the parliament had amended the constitution beyond his scope.

In its 2007 judgment in the Coelho versus Tamil Nadu case, the Indian Supreme Court reaffirmed the basic structure doctrine by ruling that a constitutional amendment entailing the violation of any fundamental rights can be struck down depending upon its impact and consequences.

The judgment clearly imposed further limitations on the constituent power of parliament with respect to the principles underlying certain fundamental rights.

In Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court is empowered with reviewing acts of the Federal Republic Congress (the Bundestag) for their constitutionality. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany can even review and reject constitutional amendments on the grounds that they are contradictory to the rest of the Federal Republic Constitution. This even goes beyond the powers of the US Supreme Court and the Indian Supreme Court.

In Hungary, where the Supreme Court Chief justice is elected by qualified two-third majority of the parliament, there is no government oversight and arbiters elected for eight years have complete authority to nullify laws without any objection from the Legislative or Executive branches. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=28484

LARKANA, Oct 31: On the intervention of the Supreme Court, a murder case has been registered four years after the killing.
The FIR of the murder case of Asif Ali Gopang, who was killed in July 2005 in Larkana, was registered on Saturday against eight people.
Talking to journalists, complainant Mukhtiar Ali Gopang, father of deceased, alleged that Malik Mohammed Ayaz Awan, an official at Hyderabad post office, bore grudge against him after he had sent proofs of his corruption to the high ups.
Mukhtiar alleged that Malik Ayaz in connivance with some people killed his son on July 16, 2005, and threw the body in the Rice Canal.
When approached, Mukhtiar said, the then SHO of Taluka, inspector Syed Asif Shah, refused to register an FIR.
“Since then I approached several officials to secure justice but to no avail. Finally I sent an application to the chief justice of the Supreme Court who asked the Sindh IG to send a report about the murder case,” Mukhtiar said.
The IG asked Larkana DIG Sanaullah Abbasi to send a report about the case, he said, adding that the IG immediately took action.
The former SHO was arrested and his name was incorporated in the FIR on the charge of negligence, Mukhtiar said.
Those nominated in the FIR registered under sections 302, 201, 217, 218, 342, 34 and 120-B of the PPC with Taluka police station include Ayaz Awan, Gul Mohammad Shaikh, Taj Mohammad Shaikh, Shafi Mohamnmad Shaikh, Imtiaz Ali Gopang, Irfan Ali Gopang and Sarfraz Gopang.
The complainant said that the Shaikhs and the Gopangs were involved in a land dispute with him. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/it-takes-four-years-to-lodge-an-fir-119

LONDON: The attack on the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi has highlighted not only the threat from the Taliban in the Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan, but also from those based in Punjab.

Security officials said some of the militants involved in the attack on the GHQ appeared to have links to Punjab. “South Punjab has become the hub of jihadism,” analyst Ayesha Siddiqa wrote in a magazine article last month. “Yet, somehow, there are still many people in Pakistan who refuse to acknowledge this threat,” she wrote.

Security officials said a militant arrested after the attack and hostage-taking at the GHQ was believed be a member of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Some hostage takers’ phone calls were intercepted and they were speaking Punjabi, another security official said. However, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said it is too early to say whether Punjab-based groups were involved.

Separate danger: NWFP Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain called on Saturday for the elimination of militant bases in Punjab as well as South Waziristan. But targeting all of the country’s militants at once could create an even more dangerous coalition by driving disparate groups closer together, analysts say. The army also draws many of its recruits from Punjab, making any efforts to root out militants there all the harder.

“Deploying the military is not an option. In the Punjab this will create a division within the powerful army because of regional loyalty,” wrote Siddiqa. But the police force in the province is inadequate and unlikely to be able to take on the thousands of armed men belonging to different militant groups. Complicating the picture further are pressures from both the US and India, which want Pakistan to target the groups directly in conflict with them.

Pakistan has focused largely on acting against groups representing a direct domestic threat, leading some analysts to suggest it may want to retain groups like the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba to be used as “strategic assets” against India. But defence analyst Brian Cloughley said the attack on the army’s headquarters showed how little support militants had in the military and the Inter-Services Intelligence. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\10\12\story_12-10-2009_pg7_8

The News, Oct 11
ISLAMABAD: Geo News and some other TV channels were once again blocked by the PPP government on Saturday afternoon, an action replay of the Musharraf-era.

The action was taken allegedly for “objectionable” coverage of the GHQ terrorist attack, but the Pakistan Army officially announced that it had no objection to the coverage and asked the government to reopen the channels.

Geo TV, however, remained shut in the afternoon while three other channels, which were also closed, were reopened shortly.

The government often shuts other channels also as a tactic to show that its action is not discriminatory and specific to one. This tactic was also used during the Musharraf onslaught against the Geo.

The action which was primarily meant to target the Geo TV, came after a senior official categorically warned the channel on Friday evening, one day before this incident, saying: “You can face damage if you do not change your policy” (Agar Aap Apni policy Tabdil Nahin Karte To Aapko Nuqsaan Pohnch Sakta Hay).

The closure of Geo TV started in the afternoon under the pretext that the TV channel was showing clips of the GHQ attack repeatedly.

Geo TV strongly denied the charge saying it is the norm throughout the world to repeat transmission as all the viewers do not watch TVs at one time. The state-run television, PTV, is also following this practice. Geo TV further said that its coverage was according to the rules and regulations of the Pemra and if there was any objection, proper legal action should be taken instead of arbitrary closure of the TV channels.

The closure of Geo TV, and for some time other channels, began with the same tactics used by the Musharraf regime by forcing the cable operators who were quietly but sternly told to downgrade Geo TV on the cable list throwing the channel to numbers 80 to 90. Some cable operators were told to deliberately disturb the audio-video signals of Geo TV so that legally it could be claimed that the channel had not been closed but the signals were weak.

The Pakistan Army and the security agencies took a firm stand against the government closure of the channels and DG ISPR Major General Athar Abbas told Geo TV and BBC that the Pakistan Army had no objection to the coverage shown by the TV channel and the channels should be immediately reopened.

General Abbas told Geo TV that he had told Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira that Pakistan Army and ISI had no complaints against the Geo and the closure orders of the government should be withdrawn.

General Abbas also told The News that he had told the information minister that the closure of Geo was earning a bad name to the army as it was being perceived that the army was behind this action by the government.

It may be recalled that the PPP government had been expressing serious anger and concern over the independent and objective coverage of news and events by the Jang Group of Publications for sometime and several high-level meetings had been held to “apply brakes” to the Geo TV and Jang Group.

These meetings chalked out strategies to control the Jang Group but action was delayed because of various reasons.

Recently when the Kerry-Lugar Bill issue was raised and exploded in the face of the PPP government, action to control the Jang Group was again considered seriously.

When Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira forced Pemra and Ministry of Information officials to take action against the Geo TV, there was a lot of resistance by some officials because there existed no legal or other justification to shut down the channel but then the orders and pressure was so intense that Pemra used its authority to take the channels off the air.

It was also learnt that the cable operators were told several tricks to shut down or downgrade the Geo TV so that if tomorrow the issue is taken to courts, they could defend their action by saying that it was not a closure but some technical fault.

Senior officials of Geo told Pemra and Ministry of Information officials that the Geo TV was showing what was legally permitted under the Pemra laws and other laws of the land. They were told that Geo transmissions earned business and they should not inflict financial loss on the channel.

They were told that if the Geo TV was found to be violating any Pemra rules, it should be taken to court and action taken under the due process of law instead of arbitrary closure, which resembled the tactics used by the dictators.

Under a democratic government such actions were not compatible, the Pemra and Ministry officials were told. The Geo officials also told the Pemra and the Ministry officials that they were extended a threat by the government a day before and now they have found an opportunity to take action against the channel. They said they intend to move the court immediately against the closure of the channel.

The Ministry officials were also told that when you people are in the opposition you always stand behind the press and strongly condemn such arbitrary measures by the government of the day against the media. “Please have mercy on Pakistan, follow rules set by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and give the people their right to information,” the Geo senior officials told Pemra and Ministry of Information officials. The Geo transmissions were restored after a few hours. http://www.thenews.com.pk/print3.asp?id=24954

The Balochistan High Court’s order to book former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf, his PM Shaukat Aziz and others for killing Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti is the first substantial move to open up contentious issues which the present PPP government has hitherto avoided. The court’s order may force Musharraf, now in self-exile, to consider hard whether to return to Pakistan, but it also has the potential to pitch the newly assertive judiciary against the civil and military establishment. Parts of the political spectrum, including the opposition parties, will welcome the order, yet it may seem easy for a judge to order Musharraf’s trial for murder, but it would be harder for the government to comply.

If the judiciary persists with the pressure and forces the executive to act, an unfortunate situation of confrontation may develop. But to correct the massive distortions in our political and judicial systems, such bitter pills have to be swallowed. Somewhere, someday, somebody will have to start the process. Though it may appear impractical now, the FIR against Musharraf and others must be registered and action must be initiated, to the extent possible. If the PPP government drags its feet, governments to come later can pick up the thread. But the process must begin. Musharraf must be booked and tried. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=202108

By Amanullah Kasi in The Dawn, Oct 8
QUETTA, Oct 7: The Balochistan High Court has ordered the SHO of Dera Bugti police station to register an FIR against former president Pervez Musharraf and others in the murder case of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti.
On a petition by Nawab Bugti’s son Nawabzada Jamil Akbar Bugti, a bench headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa ordered on Wednesday registration of a case against the respondents, except NWFP Governor Owais Ghani.
The petitioner had nominated Gen (retd) Musharraf, former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, former governor of Balochistan Owais Ghani, former chief minister Jam Mohammad Yousuf, former interior minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao and former home minister Shoaib Nausherwani.
The court accepted the submission of the petitioner, but excluded the name of Mr Ghani who being governor of the NWFP holds a constitutional position.
Mr Sherpao’s counsel Barrister Masoor Shah pleaded that he had no role in the killing. He said that forces which had killed the Baloch leader during a military operation were not under his command and he had not been consulted or informed about the action.
Mir Nausherwani said that three lawyers contacted by him had not yet responded to his request to represent him.
He denied having played any role in the killing of Nawab Bugti and said he had not been consulted on military actions in Dera Bugti.
He said the killing of the Baloch leader was a sad incident and morally he felt guilty for having failed to resign after the incident.
Deputy Attorney General Afzal Jami said the issue was a provincial matter and the federation had nothing to do with it.
Balochistan Prosecutor General Malik Zahoor Ahmed Shahwani said he had no objection to registration of the FIR.
The petitioner had challenged on Sept 8 the rejection by the Sibi sessions court of his application for registration of the report.
The chief justice had issued notices on Sept 11 to the respondents, except Mr Ghani, but neither the ex-president, the former prime minister and chief minister nor their counsel appeared before the court.
Nawab Bugti was killed on Aug 26, 2006.
APP adds: Interior Minister Rehman Malik told journalists in Islamabad that the federal government respected all judicial orders, including that of the BHC regarding Gen (retd) Musharraf. He expressed full support for the court order.
He said the former president did not have immunity from Interpol’s red warrants.
“We will extend maximum cooperation to the provincial government whenever required,” he added. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/registration-of-bugti-case-against-musharraf-ordered-809