Bhutto probe: Pak authorities send questionnaire to Musharraf

“We have sent the questionnaire to Gen Musharraf and are waiting for his reply,” said Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali,the prosecutor for the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the trial of five suspects charged with involvement in Bhutto’s assassination in a suicide attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on December 27,2007.

The questionnaire reportedly focuses on alleged security lapses and Musharraf’s perceived failure to provide adequate security to Bhutto even after she expressed fears about threats to her life.

Musharraf’s aides have said that he will not respond to the questionnaire as he enjoyed immunity by virtue of having been President at the time of Bhutto’s killing.

Observers believe it will not be an easy task for the government to get the former military ruler to cooperate in the investigation.

Fawad Chaudhry,a spokesman for Musharraf,said the government’s move to send the questionnaire to the former President was an attempt to politicise the case and damage him politically.

The move came even as the anti-terrorism judge conducting the trial ordered the arrest of two top former police officers of Rawalpindi,whom the FIA has named as accused in a supplementary chargesheet.

The police officers have been accused of negligence in providing security to Bhutto,destroying vital evidence by hosing down the crime scene within hours of the attack and tampering with records of telephone calls made on the day of the assassination.

The police officers ¿ Saud Aziz and Khurram Shahzad have in turn named four officials of the Military Intelligence and ISI they were in touch with on the day of the assassination.

Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar said these intelligence operatives of the rank of major and colonel will be included in the investigation and questioned.

The two police officers were yesterday remanded to the custody of the FIA for six days.

Investigators have said they intend to focus on the personal mobile phones of the two officers to ascertain who they were in contact with on the day of the assassination.