Musharraf’s ‘crony’ ex-military intel chief ordered to wash crime scene: UN report

ISLAMABAD - The mystery surrounding former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has started to unfold layer by layer with the UN commission’s report.

The crime scene in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh was washed down minutes after the gun and bomb attack in December 2007 killing Bhutto. Questions were raised as to who had ordered to hose down the area, which could have provided important leads in the case.

The UN fact finding commission has now revealed that the then Military Intelligence chief Major General Nadeem Ijaz had directed officials to wash-off the blood stains.

Major General Ijaz is considered to be a close pal of former President General Pervez Musharraf.

The report also indicts the then Rawalpindi City Police Officer (CPO), Saud Aziz, for acting on orders of Ijaz.

Aziz has especially been blamed for washing of the crime scene and hindering the autopsy.

The enquiry report mentions that the then Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj had met Bhutto in morning on December 27, the day she was killed, and warned her about the impending threat.

The ISI official had also asked Bhutto to maintain a low profile during the election campaign.

The commission said the deliberate prevention by the CPO of a post mortem examination of Bhutto hindered a definitive determination of the cause of her death, The News reports.

“It was patently unrealistic for the CPO to expect that Asif Zardari would allow an autopsy on his arrival in Pakistan at the Chaklala Airbase nearly seven hours after his wife’s death and after her remains had been placed in a coffin and brought to the airport. The autopsy should have been carried out at the RGH long before Zardari arrived,” the enquiry report said. (ANI)