(Image Source: Dawn)

BY ADNAN S. KHAN

ANCHOR CHRISTY LEWIS

Almost four years have passed since the assassination of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. And not until now, Pakistan’s anti-terrorist court indicted seven individuals allegedly linked to the plot. Voice of America has the details.
 

“A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Saturday indicted two senior police officers and five alleged militants for the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.Officials said the two police officers were indicted for failing to provide adequate security to Mrs. Bhutto.”



The two officers are also accused of cleaning up the crime screen before a proper investigation could take place and for failing to conduct an autopsy.

CNN reports when asked about the autopsy, the two officers said former president Pervez Musharraf told them not to perform it. Still Reza Sayah for CNN says it’s a shame that after four years, the investigation has come only so far.


“Nobody here has been convicted in connection with her assassination. This is a case that really highlights the ineffectiveness and deficiencies of Pakistan’s criminal justice system. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is one of many major cases here in Pakistan, that remain unsolved.”


And Al Jazeera finds it odd that even with Bhutto’s party in power and her husband serving as president, no concrete results have been produced. It interviewed a political analyst who said the UN is helping the government investigate the killing, but Pakistan is tying its hands.


“The People’s Party’s government which is in power today, her husband is the president her party has the Prime Minister and they are running the show. But they never gave an open-ended authorization to the United Nations. They said your job is only to find the facts but you cannot draw the conclusions. So that was a strange dichotomy, great contradiction.”


The main suspect for the Federal Investigation Agency of Pakistan – or FIA -- is Musharraf, who is in self-imposed exile in London. The Pakistan Observer reports attempts to confiscate Musharraf’s property have been deferred and the FIA is trying to bring him back to stand trial.


“They [FIA] said that a conspiracy was hatched in which the accused was part and parcel. They pleaded that the delaying tactics of the counsels for the accused should not be accepted.”


Pakistan’s national Dawn newspaper reports if the court accept FIA’s pleas for a speedy trial, the prosecution can conclude its proceedings in two months.