Scotland Yard to be allowed to quiz suspects: Cheema
By Syed Irfan Raza
ISLAMABAD, Jan 22: The Scotland Yard team investigating into the assassination of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto would be allowed to interrogate the suspected teenager and his partner allegedly involved in the assassination plot, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig (retd) Javed Iqbal Cheema said on Tuesday.
“If they (Scotland Yard team) require, the government would facilitate them to quiz Aitzaz Shah and Sher Zaman,” Mr Cheema said.
The British team has gone home, but is expected to return in a few days and present its final report.
He said that the findings of the team would be made public soon after the report was submitted to the government.
He said the 15-year-old Aitzaz Shah and his militant ‘handler’ had been arrested in Dera Ismail Khan last week and Shah had told interrogators he was next in line to kill former prime minister had the other assassins failed.
“We have arrested them and recovered some explosives, some vests used for suicide bombing and detonators from the possession of the suspects,” Mr Cheema said.
“The suspect has made some revelations with regard to the assassination of Ms Bhutto,” the spokesman said.
He said that the boy’s information had led investigators to arrest his accomplice Sher Zaman.
Responding to a question about any link between Baitullah Mehsud and the suspects, the official said that investigators had not released any such information in this regard.
Answering a question about the inclusion in the probe of the people mentioned in a letter written by Ms Bhutto to the president before her return to the country from exile, the spokesman said: “It is unacceptable because they had been nominated six months before her assassination.”
