Pak to widen scope of Bhutto murder probe

Pakistan may widen the scope of investigations into the killing of former premier Benazir Bhutto to probe the possible involvement of some intelligence officials in the plot.

The investigations into the assassination are likely to be expanded to unveil some faces who have so far been out of picture, the Dawn reported. The paper said the move to widen the investigation is likley to be ordered as three years of probe have failed to unravel the conspiracy of who killed Bhutto.

"So far little conclusive evidence has emerged about who planned or perpetrated the assassination, or under whose ultimate authority the crime scene investigation was so mismanaged," the paper said on the third anniversary of the gory killing of the charismatic leader. The probability of probing intelligence officials, the paper said had been thrown up after the arrest of the two former police officers who have told investigators that some intelligence officials were in contact with them on the fateful day of December 27, 2007.

The move to step up investigations has come up as ruling Pakistan's People's Party feels red faced that the investigations have reached an almost dead end when it is at the helm of affairs.

Severely criticising the Yusuf Raza Gilani led government, the Pakistani newspapers carried special editorials saying that Benzair Bhutto assassination investigations may go the same way as that of another premier Liaquat Ali Khan, whose killing remains unsolved to this day.

The Federal Investigation Agency obtained on Thursday six days' physical custody of former chief of Rawalpindi city police Saud Aziz and SP Khurram Shahzad to recover the cellphones they were using on the day the former prime minister was assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack outside Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh. The agency had sought a 12-day remand, but the special judge of Anti-Terrorism Court granted six days.

The two former police officers were taken into custody on Wednesday after a trial court hearing the case cancelled their pre-arrest bail. Special Public Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told reporters after the court proceedings that arrested officers had informed the investigators that four officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence had

If concrete evidence was found against the intelligence officers they would be included in the investigation. The FIA investigators said in the court that forensic tests of the cellphones were needed to ascertain who had been in contact with the two police officers on the day ofBenazir's assassination.

Advocate Zulfiqar said that phone data would help the investigators to know if other elements were also involved inthe murder. He said the police officers had given divergent statements about the cellphones and the numbers used by them three years ago.

First they said they had lost the phones and later claimed that these had broken up. Advocate Malik Muhammad Rafique, the counsel for Saud Aziz, said the cellphone data could be collected from the mobile companies concerned, and not from the police officers.

It was surprising, he said, that the investigators had sought the data three years after the incident. The two police officers were brought to the court without handcuffs in a van with windows covered with newspaper.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had a few months ago formed a three-member committee, headed by Cabinet Secretary Chaudhry Abdul Rauf, which excluded from inquiry some top military officials who allegedly ordered the hosing down of the assassination site. The inquiry report, however, has not been made public.

The UN commission on Benazir's assassination had accused MI's former director general Major General Nadeem Ijaz and some top police officials of being behind the hosing down ofthe site. The joint investigation team has prepared the 32-point questionnaire for the former president.

Interior ministry sources said the document contained questions relating to security lapse and asked the former president why he did not provide adequate security to Bhutto although she had expressed fears about threats to her life. General Musharraf's spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said the former president had nothing to do with Bhutto's security. He termed the government's move to send the questionnaire to Musharraf as an attempt to politicise the case and damage him politically.