In his petition, Mr Aslam Chaudhry has challenged the judgment of the Lahore High Court which had dismissed his plea for registration of a second FIR in Ms Bhutto’s assassination case. – File Photo

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has summoned within two weeks the entire record pertaining to the assassination of Ms Benazir Bhutto and hinted at constituting a larger bench to hear what it called an important matter.

A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Amir Hani Muslim took up on Monday a petition of Mohammad Aslam Chaudhry who served as protocol officer of Ms Bhutto for 21 years.

The court asked from Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq about findings of the inquiries conducted by the United Nations Inquiry Commission and the Scotland Yard into the Dec 27, 2007, bomb-and-gun attack in which Ms Bhutto lost her life. The court asked about implementation of the reports.

In his petition, Mr Aslam Chaudhry has challenged the judgment of the Lahore High Court which had dismissed his plea for registration of a second FIR in Ms Bhutto’s assassination case.

The petition has also requested that criminal proceedings be initiated against former President Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf and others for allegedly planning the assassination of Ms Bhutto and executing the plan.

Mr Aslam Chaudhry said that being a witness to the incident in which he was injured, he mentioned names and roles played by the accused.

Those who have been made respondents, besides Gen (retd) Musharraf, are former Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, former Law Minister Babar Awan, the then Acting Interior Minister Lt General (retd) Hamid Nawaz, Ex-Director General of Intelligence Bureau Syed Ijaz Hussain Shah, former interior secretary Syed Kamal Shah and senior police officers of Rawalpindi at the time of the incident.

The petition said that Gen (retd) Musharraf was the key person to have benefited from the death of Ms Bhutto, adding that she was one of his party’s main election rivals. It said Gen Musharraf, Syed Ijaz Shah and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi were among those named by Ms Bhutto as her would be assassins, but none of them had been charged with her murder.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the petitioner alleged, was a major financial beneficiary of the death of Ms Bhutto, being a partner along with Ms Bhutto in Petroline FZC Company along with Ms Bhutto which held two bank accounts in a Spanish bank.

The petitioner said the cause of Ms Bhutto’s death had not yet been confirmed and the fact that her death was caused by injuries sustained from laser beam shots had not even been looked into as a possibility. He also pointed out that the crime scene was washed before any forensic examination could be carried out.

It said that while dismissing the petition, the high court ignored several important questions including deli-berate destruction of the crime scene and burial of 21 bodies without autopsy.

It pointed out that after the aborted suicide attempts on Gen Musharraf on Dec 25, 2003, the crime scene was sealed for days and finally a telling piece of evidence — a cellphone chip — was found which finally led to the identification of the perpetrators.

The petitioner argued that linkage between Karsaz and Liaquat Bagh incidents needed to be seen. Both the incidents took place during Gen Musharraf’s days in power and Ms Bhutto was the target and in both cases the crime scene was washed within hours of the incident.