RAWALPINDI, Dec 18: Prosecution in Benazir Bhutto assassination case on Saturday pressed for the rejection of interim bail granted by the trial court to the former Rawalpindi city police officer (CPO) Saud Aziz and SP Khurram Shahzad, saying that sufficient incriminating material was available against the two police officers.

Special Prosecutor for Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, opposing the bail plea of former CPO Saud Aziz and SP Khurram Shahzad, said certain prosecution witnesses including police officers, doctors and rescue officials in their statements as witnesses had raised fingers at the accused for poor security of former prime minister, hosing down the crime scene and not allowing postmortem.

ATC-III Judge Rana Nisar Ahmed put off the hearing on the bail applications till December 22 when the prosecutor would resume his arguments for the arrest of the two police officers.

Earlier the lawyers of the two police officers said they had not committed any breach of security, neither washed the crime scene with mala fide intentions nor stopped the postmortem of Benazir Bhutto, therefore their bail pleas should be confirmed in the case.

The defence lawyers produced a letter written by then CPO Saud Aziz to the inspector general of Punjab police informing him that the husband of Benazir Bhutto had not allowed the postmortem.

The IG responded that if the legal heirs of the deceased were not ready for autopsy the body should be handed over to them without following the procedure.

Regarding the hosing down of the blast site the lawyers defended their clients saying every bit of item having any evidentiary value was collected before the place outside Liaquat Bagh was washed.

As far as the breach of security for Benazir Bhutto was concerned, the defence said the security was never breached and SP Ashfaq Anwar had been assigned to escort the PPP chairperson after her public address. However when the campaign rally of Nawaz Sharif came under attack at Kural Chowk, SP Ashfaq Anwar was directed to go there.

The two police officers were present in the court room at Adiala jail where the trial of five accused in the case – Sher Zaman, Aitzaz Sherazi, Abdul Rasheed, Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat Hussain is underway.