Pakistan’s former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, has been declared a fugitive in the ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination trial.
Musharraf was charged with Bhutto's murder in 2013. There has been an order to confiscate his property after he failed to show in court. On Thursday, two high-ranking police officials received a sentence of 17 years in jail for the assassination. They were found guilty of negligence and mistreatment of evidence.
The court found Saud Aziz, who was the Rawalpindi police chief when Bhutto was assassinated, and another former officer Kurrum Shehzad, guilty of "mishandling the crime scene." Apart from the 17-year prison sentence, each has been fined 500,000 Pakistani rupees.
Five accused militants were acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Musharraf has been in Dubai since 2016, after the ministry of interior lifted the travel ban on him. Bhutto’s The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) says that Musharraf was behind Bhutto’s murder. Before her death, Bhutto said that if anything were to happen to her, Musharraf should be blamed. She was killed in December 2007, by a 15-year-old suicide bomber while campaigning in Rawalpindi.
The PPP is not happy with the court’s verdict. Bhutto’s son tweeted about how disappointed he was that the five militants were not sentenced. He said that the decision was disappointing and unacceptable.
"This verdict is disrespectful to her legacy. I was there when the evidence was washed away, when the authorities botched the investigation. The People's Party has trusted and respected the justice system, but this time we will be weighing our legal options with regards to this verdict,” said a member of the PPP.
The case has been going on for a decade. It has spanned over 300 hearings from 121 witnesses, and in 2013 the chief prosecutor who was investigating Musharraf was shot dead in his car.
The 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan, Bhutto served two non-consecutive terms in 1988–90 and then 1993–96. She was the eldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the centre-left Pakistan People’s Party. The first woman to be elected as the head of an Islamic state’s government; she also became the first woman head of government to give birth while in office.
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