Benazir Bhutto murder case: FIA chief served contempt of court notice
* Court expresses displeasure over change of investigation officer
* Says FIA intentionally delaying the case
RAWALPINDI: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC), on Saturday, issued a contempt of court notice to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General (DG) Muhammad Iqbal for replacing an investigator tasked with probing the Benazir Bhutto assassination case, and observed that the country’s premier law enforcement agency was intentionally delaying the case.
When ATC judge Rana Nisar Ahmed resumed the hearing of the Benazir murder case at Adiala Jail on Saturday, all the accused except former president Pervez Musharraf were produced before the court.
FIA prosecutor, Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, informed the court that no progress had been made on the arrest warrants of Musharraf and that a progress report could not be submitted to the court as ordered during the last hearing. He informed the court that FIA Additional DG Shuja Naveed was appointed as new investigation officer in the Benazir assassination case in place of Khalid Rasul, who is now investigating the suo moto case of the embezzlement in last year’s Hajj arrangements.
Upon this, the court remarked that the FIA IO Khalid Rasul was to present report about the case before the court but new officer Shuja Naveed was present in place of him.
The court, expressing anger at the replacement, said that already many IOs had been replaced. “It is a wastage of the time of the court and the case is being intentionally dragged on,” the judge remarked. The court said that FIA DG Malik Iqbal had sought time from it for 15 days for submitting a detailed report about progress in the case and arrest warrants issued to Musharraf but he failed to do so. The court issued contempt of court notice to the FIA DG besides summoning the former IO on the next hearing on May 30.
Malik Rafiq, counsel for police officers, told the court that he had made it clear in the very beginning that Musharraf had worked as the chief of a powerful institution and the FIA was now paying the price of nominating him in the BB assassination case.
“They keep changing the IOs while seeking more time for compliance with the arrest warrants of Musharraf,” Rafiq said. Rafiq told the journalists that the court had realised that FIA was deliberately delaying the report with regards to compliance of arrest warrants of Musharraf and therefore issued contempt of court notices to the FIA DG on this count.
Source: Daily Times
Date:5/22/2011
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