Murtaza Bhutto

arrived in Karachi by a commercial flight but was taken into custody by the
police at the airport and driven straight to jail, without arrest warrants, which
were produced a day later. Ms Ghinwa said the authorities at that time were
against the people who supported her husband. They were persecuted and
victimised and the situation reached its climax when Mir Murtaza went to
Larkana in January 1994.
At Larkana, she said, he and his mother had been "targeted" and fired upon
by the police. In the shooting two people had died instantly, and Ms Bhutto
had "celebrated the occasion through festivity which included dance and
music, close to Al-Murtaza."
Ms Ghinwa said many criminal cases had been registered against Mir
Murtaza in Karachi and Lahore, and an STA court in Karachi had granted
him bail in the last case. She claimed that the courts were pressed not to grant
him bail and the judges who provided him relief were either suspended,
transferred or removed. She said her husband did not want her nationality to
be changed but, finally, an application was made in June 1994 and the
authorities wanted her to surrender her Lebanese passport. But then "we
decided to wait until he (Mir Murtaza) came out of jail", she added. She said
after his release on bail in all the cases, Mir Murtaza was persecuted again
and was not allowed to go to Garhi Khuda Bux to offer Fateha at his father's
grave. Ms Bhutto did not have the grace to allow him to do so, and the police
obstructed, intimidated and victimised him and his supporters, she alleged.
Ms Ghinwa said said Fatima's teachers were also apprehending victimisation
at the hands of the Benazir government and so did Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Jr's
friends who were not willing to visit 70-Clifton. She said her husband was
hurt a great deal by reports of corruption and loot by Benazir and her
husband and their cotery who had come to power in the name of Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto. Mir Murtaza, she said, openly criticised Ms Bhutto and the then chief
minister, Abdullah Shah, for the their style of government and extra-judicial
killings that were going on.
She said Benazir wanted a meeting with Murtaza for which he had laid down
conditions that a serious agenda be taken up and that a request for a meeting
be sent in writing, which was done and the meeting took place on July 7,
1996, in Islamabad. At the meeting, Ms Ghinwa claimed that Ms Bhutto had
asked her brother for the return of their father's library and antiques, and Asif
Zardari, who was also present, had accused Mir Murtaza of attacking him to
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