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Sharief's party sees RAW hand in lawyer's murder

Hasan Zaidi in Karachi

Deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief's party, the Pakistan Muslim League, blamed the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing for the murder on Friday of one of the principal lawyers defending the former premier in the plane conspiracy case.

In an official statement issued by the party on Friday, the PML claimed that the murder of Iqbal Raad, a former advocate-general of Sindh, was aimed at "sabotaging the visit to Pakistan of US President Bill Clinton" and tearing apart "the stability of Pakistan by creating misunderstandings between the party and the military regime."

Raad was assassinated along with two other people in his office by three gunmen who remain untraced.

Iqbal Raad was part of a team of lawyers defending Nawaz Sharief and six co-accused in an anti-terrorism case that revolves around their alleged attempts to refuse landing rights to a commercial airliner carrying Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, and 197 others back to Pakistan from Sri Lanka hours before the October 12 coup that toppled the Muslim League government.

The former premier and others are charged with kidnapping, hijacking and attempted murder.

The PML claimed India had resorted to this act after all its efforts to prevent President Clinton from visiting Pakistan had failed at the diplomatic level. "The PML will never fall prey to this bait of India," the official press release stated, "and will continue its fight for the restoration of democracy through peaceful means."

Top PML leader Raja Zafarul Haq also demanded the establishment of an independent judicial commission under a judge of the Supreme Court to probe the matter and fix responsibility for the murder.

However, the party condemned the military government of General Pervez Musharraf for not ensuring the security of the defence team while it took extraordinary measures to protect the prosecution witnesses and lawyers.

The head of Nawaz Sharief's defence team, Khawaja Sultan, also expressed the fear of the other lawyers for their own lives. "We are terrified at the killing and would like to know the motives behind it." Sultan added that the defence would need to evaluate its strategy in the aftermath of the murder.

The trial proceedings, which are drawing to a close, are scheduled to resume on Monday.

Meanwhile, the police claims to have made some headway in tracing the hitmen and also issued sketches of the culprits to the media. Police sources claim they are working on a number of possible motives for the attack but added that they too suspect the involvement of RAW.

Other intelligence agencies involved in the investigations apprehend that more such acts of terrorism might take place before the visit of the US President.

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