Rawalpindi - An accused of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s murder yesterday requested the anti-terrorism court to grant him telephone facility in the jail.
The court while accepting the plea of the accused summoned report from Superintendent Adiala Jail on October 1, 2015.
Earlier, the anti terrorism court also recorded the statement of a witness Inspector Kashif Riaz, the than station house officer (SHO) of Police Station City, while the defence lawyers also cross-examined the prosecution witness.
Commissioner Office Rawalpindi also submitted a report before the court stating it has finalised all the arrangements to record the statement of an important witness US author Mark Siegel through video link from New York. The court ordered the authorities to record statement of Mark Siegel on October 1, 2015 at 7:30pm in Commissioner Office. The court deferred the hearing till October 1, 2015 in the murder case.
When Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Rawalpindi Number 1 Special Judge Rai Muhammad Ayub Marth held proceeding of BB murder case, Naseer Khan Tanvali, the counsel for an accused Aitzaz Shah, submitted an application before the judge in which he pleaded the court to allow his client to talk to his family members through public call office (PCO) situated in jail as it was his legal right and the jail administration has been allowing all the inmates to have chat with their families for 20 minutes in a month through jail PCO.
The judge accepted the application for hearing and sought record from the jail superintendent.
Meanwhile, the plaintiff Inspector Kashif Riaz also appeared before the court to record his statement. He stated that he had lodged case of Benazir’s murder and had also collected some 19 articles as evidence from the crime scene at Liaquat Bagh on December 27, 2007. The articles included pistol, dead shells of bullets, body parts of the deceased, blood, explosive and other stuff from the bulletproof vehicle of the former premier. He said that he had prepared initial investigation report and later the investigation was assigned to joint investigation team by the government on December 30, 2007. The court made his statement part of the case. However, another defence lawyer Malik Muhammad Rafique Advocate sought time from court for cross-examination because of his bad health conditions.
In the courtroom, former City Police Officer Syed Saud Aziz and former Superintendent of Police Khurram Shehzad and Maj (Retd) Safdar Javed Malik, the lawyer of former President General (Retd) Pervez Musharraf, were also present.