ISLAMABAD: Babar Awan, the president's counsel, startled the Supreme Court on Thursday when he stated that a medical officer's verification confirming the death of an executed prisoner was missing from the certificate of the Rawalpindi jail superintendent after the execution of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

“The time of Mr Bhutto's execution on April 4, 1979, is also not mentioned on (superintendent's) certificate and though his body hung for an hour, it is not clear who certified it”, he said while reading out portions from voluminous documents in pin drop silence during the hearing of a presidential reference relating to the Z.A. Bhutto case.

“This is a case of a 'judicial murder' done in custody,” he stressed, alleging that a drama had been staged at the Lahore High Court for the custodial killing of Mr Bhutto.

The Supreme Court asked Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq to hold a meeting in his office with Punjab Advocate General Khawaja Haris, railways police chief, director general of the Federal Investigation Agency and the provincial police chief and coordinate efforts to trace the record of the FIR No.402 registered at the Ichhra police station which was missing.

The court has been asking for the documents for the three days.

“Prime facie it is essential to see the records to understand why the investigation against Mr Bhutto was consigned to record (closed) on Sept 1, 1975, but revived in 1977 while investigating another case regarding the role of the now disbanded Federal Security Force (FSF),” Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said, adding that the court wanted to know how Mr Bhutto was involved in the entire case.

Moments after the rejection of Mr Bhutto's review petition by the Supreme Court on the night of March 24, 1979, the judgment was sent to the LHC registrar and was received by the high court the same day, Mr Awan said, building his arguments on bias on the part of then LHC chief justice Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain.

Justice Mushtaq signed the black warrant probably after midnight, showing the date March 25, 1979, he said, adding that he had no idea whether or not a chief justice signed death warrants. The same chief justice issued two similar death warrants on April 3 and 4.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry noted that the date on the warrant of death sentence had been tampered with since it showed two dates -- March 25 as well as 24.

The chief justice also asked how could the LHC receive the apex court's order the same day when in those days there was no motorway and the road journey took almost eight hours.

Estranged PPP leaders Dr Safdar Abbasi and Naheed Khan also attended Thursday's court proceedings but were greeted only by Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan who is assisting the court as an amicus curiae.

Mr Awan also distributed photocopies of three execution warrants and the superintendent's certificate among media personnel.

Though the other superintendent's certification carries handwritten verification of the medical officer along with his signatures and stamp, the same was absent on the certificate issued by the superintendent after the execution.

The superintendent's certificate appears to be a typed sample stating “Zulfikar has been duly executed and that the said Ali Bhutto was accordingly hanged by the neck till he was dead in Rawalpindi on Wednesday the 4th day of April, 1979.” The blanks were filled in handwriting.

“It is strange that the certificate was signed (by the superintendent) more than once,” Justice Ghulam Rabbani noted.

“The real question would be whether the provision of Rule 63 of the Jail Manual was adhered to or not,” Justice Javed Iqbal said.

The death warrant of Mr Bhutto was kept for three months by the jail superintendent and then returned on July 31, 1979, the counsel said.

During the proceedings, the chief justice said: “We keep on fighting with Mr Awan to come to the case points but whatever he was saying, he has substance to it. We have great respect for the judges who tried Mr Bhutto, but what they were doing has shocked us.”

Khawaja Haris informed the court that despite hectic efforts the missing documents could not be traced.