Islamabad, April 17: The then Pakistan Military Intelligence (MI) chief, Major General Nadeem Ijaz, a relative of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, had ordered the police to hose down the scene of two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007, reveals the UN report on the killing.
The report of the UN fact-finding commission says the then Rawalpindi city police officer, Saud Aziz, did not act independently in hosing down the assassination site.
The commission attached great significance to the washing of the crime scene to eliminate evidence that could have proved tremendously useful in investigations into the assassination.
At one place, the report said, the then Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) director-general, Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, met Benazir Bhutto early in the morning of December 27, 2007 at Zardari House in Islamabad.
It said that directly knowledgeable sources told the commission that they spoke both about the elections as well as threats to her life; versions differ as to how much detail was conveyed about the threats.
The commission is satisfied that the ISI chief told Benazir Bhutto that the agency was concerned about a possible terrorist attack against her and urged her to limit her public exposure and to keep a low profile at the campaign event at Liaquat Bagh later that day.
It said that on three different occasions, Prof. Mussadiq, a senior physician at Rawalpindi General Hospital, where Benazir Bhutto was brought from Liaquat Bagh, asked Saud Aziz for permission to conduct an autopsy, and that the CPO refused each request.
On the second request, Saud Aziz is reported to have sarcastically asked the professor whether a first information report had been filed, a matter that the CPO should know, not the professor, the report says.
Shafqat Ali