The pipe dreams of General Musharraf – by D. Asghar
Our “saviour and moderately enlightened leader”, none other than former President and General Musharraf is facing a shoe in London. Some disgruntled person at the meeting of newly originated party, “All Pakistan Muslim League, dislodged the footwear. It never made it to the intended target and there was no harm no foul.
Last checked, it was not a female sandal and the shoe hurler was definitely not Ms Odho, a champion of civil society rights these days. It was a male and the security personnel removed him from the crowd (if there was any) in a rather expeditious manner.
There is a context of what General Musharraf is facing nowadays. According to the media reports, his name has been included in the list of murder probe of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. This is of course and should be standard operating procedure. After all it was General Musharraf on the saddle, when a heinous murder took place in broad daylight and another Bhutto was brutally murdered in Rawalpindi. No one is pointing fingers at him, but at least as the Head of the State and the person responsible for the safety of the entire nation, he has some clarifications to do.
This brings us to another subject, what is our so dear friend lecturing to various forums around the world? Is it the recycling of same rhetoric that entire world is so amply familiar with. Is it memoirs of our former General who took one step and brought us thousands of feet away from the norms of civility and the rule of law.
Perhaps he still has cronies around the globe and in the country, hoping to bring him back to the throne of Islamabad. From the current read, it seems like they are banking on the wrong guy. The fact is quite plain and simple. PPP and PML-N pretty much have the territory well covered. However, his Q Leaguers and MQM and some religious fundamentalist parties may align with him at due time, if it ever happens. It is utterly unlikely that in presence of PPP and PML-N, he has a chance to form a government. The only way he can make it is if he forms an alliance with either PPP or PML-N, but chances of that are very slim.
What about a glut of cases against the former commando in the Land of the Pure. Some are really serious and may take him to the slammer. He often has reiterated that he is not afraid of any of those cases and he will face them head on. Only time will tell when the rubber finally gets to meet the road. Until then these are all pipe dreams of our dear friend Musharraf.
He was rudely awaken from his dream by the sho-tosser.
FIA names Musharraf as accused in BB case
* Tells court police officers were complying with orders of former president
* Court will be requested to declare Musharraf proclaimed offender if he fails to appear in court
Staff Report
RAWALPINDI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Monday named former president Pervez Musharraf as “an accused” in an interim criminal charge sheet in Benazir Bhutto assassination case.
The FIA also submitted the interim challans of former city police officer (CPO) Saud Aziz and former Rawal Town Superintendent of Police Khurram Shehzad in an anti-terrorism court with record of BB’s BlackBerry that was recovered from them a few days ago. The officials were arrested in connection with Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
The FIA counsel, Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, submitted that the court would be requested to declare Musharraf as proclaimed offender if he fails to appear before it.
When the court asked why Musharraf was named as an accused, Zulfiqar submitted that the investigators had tried to contact him for questioning at his London home, but as yet there had been no response from him.
He said Musharraf’s name was included in their investigation report in the light of what the two police officials, Aziz and Shehzad, told investigators.
The counsel claimed that both the police officials were complying with Musharraf’s orders.
As per the BlackBerry record allegedly recovered from the officials, Benazir neither received nor made any call from it on December 27, 2007 after 3pm and even made no contact with Asif Ali Zardari. The mobile record was being used as evidence in the case.
Earlier, Aziz, in his statement, claimed that the order to change security in-charge of Benazir Bhutto was given by Musharraf and the crime scene was washed on his orders soon after the incident.
Malik Waheed Anjum, counsel for the accused, told the court that the statement of the then SSP (operations), Yaseen Farooq, three years after the incident was an attempt to save the BB’s security adviser.
Anjum said there was no convincing evidence against the accused upon which the officials could be detained. He said Aziz and Shehzad were kept on a 24-day physical remand but the investigation team was not able to produce any substantial evidence against them.
In April 2010, a UN panel blamed the government of Pervez Musharraf for failing to provide adequate security to BB and said investigations were hampered by intelligence agencies and other officials who impeded “an unfettered search for the truth”.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=201128\story_8-2-2011_pg1_1
Benazir probe
From the Newspaper
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/09/benazir-probe.html
THE plot thickens once again. The FIA submitted in court on Monday yet another report on its ongoing investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s murder. This time it has included Gen (retd) Musharraf’s name as one of the accused. Although no specific charges have been brought against him, the inclusion of clauses of ‘abetment’ and ‘conspiracy’ in the list of criminal charges suggests that some of the investigators believe Ms Bhutto’s assassination may have been the result of a much bigger plot. The current findings are in stark contrast to those of a report submitted last November — which ascribed responsibility solely to the TTP and its dead leader Baitullah Mehsud — hinting at a larger, state-sponsored plan rather than an isolated terrorist incident. That, in turn, has broader implications, suggesting that other senior military and government officials could potentially be charged with giving instructions to junior police officers and making it possible for terrorist elements to carry out the assassination.
The difference between this development and prior reports adds to the confusion, secrecy and delays that the murder probe has been cloaked in for the last three years. One would think, given Ms Bhutto’s importance for the party in power, that the administration would have made a genuine effort to get to the bottom of the crime. The request for a UN probe perhaps reflected a desire for an independent investigation unhampered by Pakistan’s political realities, but it was commissioned to be simply a fact-finding mission with no power to point fingers. When the November report was submitted, this paper claimed that the team had been prevented from questioning Gen Musharraf. Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s indignation about Monday’s charges against the general, and reports that he might insist these charges be withdrawn, are again raising questions about whether or not the administration is truly interested in getting to the bottom of the matter within a reasonable timeframe.
So far findings have remained vague and inconsistent. The government seems to be doing little to change that.
Since December 2007, Pakistanis have been looking for answers from, in turn, the investigation commissioned by the Musharraf government shortly after the assassination, the UN probe, various interim reports from the current investigation, and committees that have been formed along the way. But their findings have often been contradictory, and a clear set of answers has yet to emerge, adding to the general impression that deliberate efforts have been made by various quarters to hold back different pieces of evidence. Meanwhile, Ms Bhutto’s supporters and Pakistanis at large are still waiting to hear the truth about one of the country’s most significant political assassinations.
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