Emotional Bhutto claims sister-in-law is part of presidential
conspiracy
Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto accused her estranged
sister-in-law of being part of a presidential conspiracy to dislodge
her government. On February 23, she said the Lebanese-born Ghinva
Bhutto was wooed and courted by Pakistani President Farooq Leghari
and the caretaker government he appointed to involve Bhutto's
husband in the murder of Mir Murtaza, her estranged younger brother.
''Why did the president grant Ghinva a Pakistani citizenship when
her husband did not do so after seven years of marriage?'' Bhutto
asked during her two-hour deposition before a three-judge tribunal
investigating the murder. "Why did she have several high
profile meetings with the president and his appointed people?"
Bhutto claimed Ghinva was part of the president's conspiracy to
hijack the Pakistan People's Party, discredit her government and
plan a hung parliament. Her husband, former investment minister
Asif Ali Zardari, is charged with conspiring to kill Murtaza.
He was arrested and jailed immediately after Bhutto's November
5 ouster and is currently being held in Karachi's Landhi jail.
Bhutto said her husband had been "falsely implicated'' in
the killing. As she left the Supreme Court building, a small crowd
of Murtaza supporters raised slogans of ''Murderer, murderer,
Zardari murderer.''
The 44-year-old twice-dismissed prime minister said her government
appointed the investigating officer Ghinva had recommended and
even established the tribunal on her terms in October. "But
Ghinva's statements have been changing as the tribunal proceeds,"
Bhutto said. "First she did not name Asif as an accused,
then her paid servant was asked to add his name in the police
complaint and then she told the media that Asif was involved and
now she is going to say Benazir was the suspect."
Bhutto also raised questions about the role of Murtaza's guards,
some of whom were working for a hidden hand, she charged before
a packed courtroom. ''People were bought. An individual policeman
was bought or an individual bodyguard was bought.'' She cited
an interim report of the British private detectives her government
hired who, she said, reported that the first shot was fired by
one of Murtaza's guards.
This was her second appearance before the tribunal. Only yesterday,
an emotional Bhutto testified that her brother's murder was part
of a plot to oust her as Pakistan's prime minister. "I think
there was a hidden hand who wanted to kill a Bhutto to get another
Bhutto,'' she sobbed before the tribunal in this southern
port city.
Bhutto broke down several times during her two-hour testimony,
during which she described an elaborate plot to remove her from
power. She accused Leghari, the man who dismissed her from power,
of conspiracy in her brother's assassination in order to justify
his dismissal of her government. "Murtaza was killed to incite
hatred against me and justify the overthrow of a democratically
elected government,'' she claimed. Bhutto's party was routed in
general elections that followed her dismissal, winning only 18
seats in the 217-seat national assembly. She had ruled with 86
seats in the previous government.
Murtaza had condemned his sister's government as corrupt and had
led a break-away faction of her Pakistan People's Party. His widow,
who reluctantly took over the leadership of her late husband's
Shaheed Bhutto faction and unsuccessfully contested elections
for national assembly (lower house) and the Sindh provincial assembly,
has blamed her sister-in-law for Murtaza's murder.
Murtaza, 42, and seven bodyguards were killed in a hail of police
gunfire outside his Karachi residence on September 20, less than
six weeks before his sister was dismissed as prime minister on
charges of corruption and economic mismanagement.
UNI
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