ISLAMABAD: After about a decade of her assassination, the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Rawalpindi is likely to conclude the trial proceedings against seven suspects in the Benazir Bhutto murder case before the Eid holidays.

According to Mohammad Azhar Chaudhry, the chief prosecutor in the high-profile murder case, the prosecution would start reading of evidence on Tuesday (today) which would continue till Friday.

However, a key component of the murder case related to former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf will remain inconclusive since he left the country last year and has been declared an absconder.

The former military ruler is also a sole accused in the high treason case for imposing an emergency in the country on November 3, 2007.

ATC judge decides to hear much-delayed matter on a daily basis

Though his name was included in the Exit Control List, the interior ministry allowed him to go abroad after the superior courts lifted a ban on his foreign traveling.

ATC Judge Asghar Ali Khan on Monday decided to conduct the trial of the murder case on a daily basis.

The prosecution would start reading of statements of the 68 witnesses along with the documents which have been submitted to the ATC.

On August 27, the prosecution is supposed to conclude its arguments after which the counsel for the suspects would start their arguments.

Chief prosecutor Chaudhry told Dawn that the ATC judge was making serious efforts to conclude the much-delayed trial proceedings before the start of the Eid vacations in the first week of September.

The prosecution witnesses included several government officials, including former secretary interior Kamal Shah, former director general National Crisis Management Cell retired Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, PPP politicians, doctors, rescue workers and personal servants of the slain PPP chairperson.

The 68th and last prosecution witness in the murder case was former additional director general Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Mohammad Khalid Qureshi, who testified before the ATC in May last year.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) constituted to probe the murder case, however, did not record the statements of former director general Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) retired Lt-Gen Hameed Gul and former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Ilahi.

A prosecution witness, US lobbyist Mark Siegel, had claimed that Ms Bhutto sent him a letter on 16, 2007, expressing the fear that retired Brigadier Ejaz Shah, retired Lt-Gen Hameed Gul and former chief minister Pervaiz Elahi would assassinate her.

Initially, a trial of five suspects had started in February 2008 after the Rawalpindi police arrested them in connection with the murder. However, when the PPP formed its government in the centre in 2008, the investigation was transferred to the FIA and Mr Qureshi was made the head of the JIT.

In 2010, the team included Gen Musharraf, DIG Saud Aziz and SSP Khurram Shahzad in the case as the accused persons.

The trial recommenced when Mr Aziz and Mr Shahzad were arrested. When Gen Musharraf returned to the country in 2013, the prosecution added him in the challan and the trial started again.

The ATC earlier this year separated the trial of Gen Musharraf as the counsel for the prosecution and the accused persons were of the view that since the former military ruler was an absconder the continuation of the trial of other accused was not possible. Subsequently, the court separated his trial to conclude the proceedings against the five terrorism suspects and the two police officers.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2017