Benazir Bhutto murder: 'Nisar allowed Musharraf to escape'

LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Latif Khosa on Thursday claimed that former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan allowed former military ruler Pervez Musharraf to leave the country despite court orders to the contrary to escape punishment in Benazir Bhutto murder case, ARY News reported.

Speaking exclusively to ARY News, Khosa clarified that it was not the PPP government but Musharraf himself who invited Scotland Yard to investigate the case and when PPP came into power, the case was transferred to the FIA and the following year its JIT implicated Gen Musharraf in the case.

“We have pursued the case with honesty and presented evidence against him (Musharraf) in the case but if he is away, Nisar Ali Khan allowed him to escape,” said Khosa reminding that court had not only declared Musharraf fugitive in the case. (at 1:50 in the video below)

Replying to the former dictator’s latest allegations, Khosa said that none of the 88 witnesses questioned in the case named Zardari.

“The biggest beneficiary of Benazir Bhutto’s murder was Musharraf. He ran the tapes claiming militants from Miranshah were behind the murder, today he said that Zardari did three telephone calls after the murder, why can’t he run those tapes?” asked Khosa.

He added that it (Musharraf’s statement) is just a counter blast.

On August 31, an anti-terrorism court declared former military ruler Pervez Musharraf a fugitive in ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s murder trial, ordering his property confiscated. The court acquitted five Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) suspects and announced 17-year imprisonment for two police officials.

PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari challenged the ATC verdict seeking the death penalty for retired Gen Pervez Musharraf and the two police officers.

In a video released in media on Thursday (today), Musharraf blamed PPP co-chairman and Benazir Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari for the former PM and her brother Murtaza Bhutto’s murder.

Musharraf has been living in self-imposed exile in Dubai after his name was removed from Exit Control List last year.