Pak apex court rejects petition seeking police officers bail suspension

Islamabad: Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition seeking the suspension of bail granted to two senior police officers accused in the assasination case of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Bhutto, who had served twice as prime minister in the 1990s, was killed in a gun and bomb attack on December 27, 2007 in Rawalpindi, the garrison city neighbouring the capital, after she finished addressing a political rally.
A two-member bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa heard the petitions against the high court’s decision to grant bails to former City Police Officer (CPO) Saud Aziz and former Superintendent of Police (SP) Khurram Shahzad in the case.
After hearing the arguments, the Supreme Court rejected the petition and upheld the bails granted to the two senior police officers.
No reason has been found to interfere in the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench August 2017 order to grant bail, the Express Tribune quoted the order passed by the bench as saying.
On August 31, 2017, an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi had sentenced Aziz and Shahzad, both deputed on Bhutto’s security, to 17 years after they were found guilty of negligence. However, both were set free on bail by the Lahore High Court in October same year.
Their bail was challenged in the Supreme Court by the widow of a worker of Bhutto whose husband was also killed in the bombing attack with her.
The two-member bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa dismissed the petition against bail, rejecting arguments by petitioner’s lawyer Latif Khosa who said that the bail was given by violating the rules. Khosa said that both were convicted under the anti-terrorism laws which bar even the suspects from receiving bail.
Earlier, the trail court acquitted five man accused, and declared Pervez Musharraf as a proclaimed offender in the case. But it awarded sentences to the two police officers.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto, son of late Benazir, who attended the hearing expressed dismay at the verdict.
“My family has had a long relationship with the judiciary. We have been coming to the courts for three generations,” he said.
He also questioned why Musharraf was not convicted and the abettors of the attack were acquitted. Apart from Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, former premier Raja Pervez Ashraf, Farhatullah Babar, Mehreen Anwar Raja and other party leaders were present at the hearing. (PTI)