News
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
SC to take up plea for registration of second FIR in BB murder case
* Benazir’s former protocol officer seeks registration of second FIR against Musharraf, Rehman Malik, Pervaiz Elahi, 12 others
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: A five-member special bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, will take up the case regarding the registration of second FIR in the Benazir Bhutto murder case today (Wednesday).
Former protocol officer of Benazir Bhutto has filed the petition, seeking registration of second FIR in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case against former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf, Interior Minister Rehman Malik and 12 others.
Talking to Daily Times, petitioner Chaudhry Aslam said that Advocate Rasheed A Rizvi would appear before the bench on his behalf in the case. It is to be noted that Rizvi is also the counsel of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in the memogate case.
The applicant said that he had moved a miscellaneous application in the court about informing additional facts to the bench regarding the case.
He said that they would inform that Justice Asif Khosa had refused to hear this case in the Lahore High Court in the past because his brother Tariq Khosa was FIA director general that time. He added that another member of the bench Justice Ijaz Ahmad had also granted the bail of two accused in the LHC.
“We are not objecting to these two judges, but also will tell them their past orders in this case, when they were the judges of the LHC,” Aslam added.
Meanwhile, Advocate Amjad Iqbal Qureshi said that he would appear on behalf of former interior secretary Kamal Shah and Javed Cheema.
On August 1, the court, while admitting the appeal of Chaudhry Aslam against June 23 decision of the Lahore High Court (LHC), sought the United Nations, the Scotland Yard, Inspector General of Police Mian Majeed and FIA investigation report on BB murder case from the attorney general of Pakistan. In the last hearing, the CJP had questioned whether the government implemented the recommendations of the Scotland Yard and the UN after they investigated the case. The court also hinted at constituting a larger bench in this case after receiving the UN, Scotland Yard and police reports.
Aslam has made Musharraf, Rehman Malik, former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, former law minister Babar Awan, former Intelligence Bureau director general Ejaz Shah, former caretaker interior minister Hamid Nawaz, interior secretary Kamal Shah, former spokesman of the Interior Ministry Javed Iqbal Cheema and others as respondents.
The LHC Rawalpindi bench had dismissed Aslam’s request for including Babar Awan and Rehman Malik’s names on the Exit Control List (ECL). One of the judges had written an additional note that Aslam was neither the aggrieved party nor legal heir of Benazir Bhutto, therefore, he had no right to lodge an FIR regarding her death.
The applicant stated that the LHC’s June 23 ordered was unlawful, perverse without jurisdiction and based on fanciful application of mind. He said that LHC had failed to give due consideration to the United Nations report, on which $60 million of Pakistan were spent for the investigation of the BB’s murder.
The petitioner, who is himself pleading the case, told the court that if an FIR in Akbar Bugti’s murder case could be registered then why couldn’t a second FIR be registered in Benazir’s case.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk