Murtaza Bhutto

BENAZIR CLAIMS LEGHARI BEHIND MURTAZA'S
KILLING
KARACHI, Feb 22, 1997: Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto claimed on
Saturday that there was a hidden hand behind the conspiracy to murder her
brother, Mir Murtaza, and named President Farooq Leghari, saying that the
plan was to "kill one Bhutto to get another Bhutto." Appearing as a witness
before a three-member judicial tribunal headed by justice Nasir Aslam Zahid,
a judge of the Supreme Court, with two judges from the high court, Justice
Amanullah Abbasi and Justice Dr Ghous Mohammad, she alleged that the
president might have used Brig Imtiaz in the conspiracy. She said it was a
single shot that hit Mir Murtaza in the neck and that meant it was a targeted
murder, although the police called it accidental.
She said there was a pattern in the killing of Mir Murtaza: In this case her
husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was dubbed a co-accused and when her other
brother, Shahnawaz, was murdered, Mir Murtaza was blamed. She supported
her allegation by claiming that in 1991-92 there was a plan to murder Asif and
"blame me for the crime." Then in Sept 1993 there was a plan to kill herself at
the Nishtar Park public meeting and very recently there wasa plan to kill her
husband by poisoning and again blaming her for that. Ms Bhutto also recalled
that Mr Zardari had also been implicated in the kidnapping for ransom of a
London-based Pakistan businessman, Murtaza Bukhari, but he was cleared
by the court.
She said Mir Murtaza's was the murder story of a man, an MPA, a leader of a
party, son of a former prime minister, son of a mother who had won her seat
in the National Assembly several times and brother of a sitting prime
minister and "full justice be done by spilling out the beans to find out the real
killers who alone have motives and the stories which are being circulated are
head to feet wrong." To unravel the truth, she wanted the tribunal to uncover
the hidden hands. She said she fully supported the creation of this tribunal
and right from the beginning wanted to appear as a witness to testify about
the facts she knew of. Ms Bhutto appeared at the new Supreme Court
building at the corner of Burns Garden, on M.R. Kiyani Road with many
lawyers and her party associates, including Chaudhry Aitezaz Ahsan, Sen
Iqbal Haider, Farooq H. Naek, Rashid Rabbani and Nahid Khan, and until the
tribunal started the hearing she sat in second row of the courtroom next to Mr
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