Last prosecution witness in Benazir Bhutto murder case cross-examined

The last prosecution witness in Benazir Bhutto murder case, former additional Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Mohammad Khalid Qureshi, was crossed examined in the Anti-Terrorism Court. In his statement recorded on Wednesday, Qureshi, who was also the head of joint Investigation team in Benazir Bhutto (BB) murder case, said that in 2009, he was assigned to investigate the murder case and the investigation was as per the law.
Counsel of former president General Pervez Musharraf (Retd) Barrister Farogh Nasim cross examined Qureshi on his statement here on Thursday. Qureshi told the court that there was no record of telephonic conversation which took place between General Musharraf and Ms Bhutto, which according to Mark Siegel, in his statement, said that Benazir received a threatening call from Pervez Musharraf in his presence on September 25, 2007 and Benazir was extremely perturbed after receiving the call. He said that the JIT could not trace any call either from the two cell phones of Ms Bhutto or General Musharraf's phone.
He said General Musharraf might have called Ms Bhutto from any of his official phone. However, General Musharraf had also dismissed the accusation by Mark Siegel and had denied any telephonic contact with Ms Bhutto.
Besides, Mr Siegel had also claimed that Ms Bhutto sent him an email on October 26, 2007, in which she expressed her sense of insecurity and had written that if anything happened to her the military ruler would be responsible as well as Brigadier Ejaz Shah (Retd), former DG ISIS Lieutenant General Hameed Gul (Retd) and former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.
While responding to Barrister Nasim, Qureshi admitted that no forensic report of the said email was submitted to the ATC adding that the email was sent from the two official email accounts of Ms Bhutto, therefore, it needs forensic audit. Qureshi, in his written statement, had stated that "during the investigation of Benazir murder case, I personally recorded statements of ... Hamid Gul, Ejaz Shah, Zamurd Khan (former MD Baitul Maal), Farhatullah Babar, General Tauqeer Zia (Retd), Senator Rehman Malik, Khusro Pervez, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema (Retd) and issued questionnaires to a number of people including former secretary interior Syed Kamal Shah." He further said that he had implicated DIG Saud Aziz, SSP Khurram Shahzad and General Musharraf in Benazir murder case. Senior lawyer Malik Rafique, counsel for DIG Aziz and SSP Shahzad, requested the ATC Judge Rai Ayub Khan Marth to adjourn the proceeding till next Wednesday when he would cross examine Qureshi.