Benazir Bhutto murder trial: Pervez Musharraf to return to Pakistan when he is ‘medically fit’

Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf said he would return to Pakistan to face trial in the murder case of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

A Pakistani court on Thursday pronounced Musharraf a fugitive in the murder trial but acquitted five men accused of involvement in the 2007 assassination of Bhutto, the first female prime minister of a Muslim country. In a statement issued to the media today, Musharraf said the verdict of the Rawalpindi Anti Terrorism Court was not against him. “I will certainly come back to Pakistan and face the trial, as and when I am medically fit,” he said.
“I have been framed in the Benazir Bhutto murder case by way of political victimization, while I had nothing to do with her untimely and tragic death,” he said.

“I have not been the beneficiary of prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s murder and the entire case as pitched against me is materially false, fictitious, fabricated and is a result of political intrigue,” the former army chief said. The anti-terrorism court branded Musharraf as an absconder and ordered the confiscation of his property. The verdicts are the first to be issued since Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack nearly a decade …read more