Policemen indicted over Bhutto killing

A Pakistani anti-terror court yesterday indicted two police officers and five alleged Taliban militants over the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a prosecutor said.

Nobody has been convicted or jailed for Bhutto’s assassination on December 27, 2007, in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad, in a gun and suicide attack after she addressed an election rally.

The death of the charismatic, Oxford-educated Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim nation, threw the country into chaos, sparking violence and months of political turmoil.

Police say that three other suspects in the high-profile case have been killed – including the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud – and two remain at large.

“Seven accused including two police officers have been indicted,” public prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar told AFP. The police were arrested a year ago while the suspected militants have been in custody for nearly four years.

Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister, had returned from exile to stand for election two months before she was killed.