During the trial in Adiyala jail of seven arrested accused, ATC-III special judge Rana Nisar Ahmed issued notices to President Asif Ali Zardari, Nusrat Bhutto, Sanam Bhutto, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Bakhtawar and Asifa, asking them to join the proceedings in person or through their lawyers. – File Photo

RAWALPINDI: An anti-terrorism court hearing the Benazir Bhutto assassination case issued notices on Friday to the heirs of the former prime minister to join the proceedings.

During the trial in Adiyala jail of seven arrested accused, ATC-III special judge Rana Nisar Ahmed issued notices to President Asif Ali Zardari, Nusrat Bhutto, Sanam Bhutto, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Bakhtawar and Asifa, asking them to join the proceedings in person or through their lawyers.

“In every murder case the legal heirs of the deceased are given an opportunity to contest their case by submitting their statements and providing any available evidence before the court to support the proceedings,” the Federal Investigation Agency’s Special Public Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali said.

The hearing was put of till Jan 13.

Another prosecutor, Chaudhry Azhar, said the court would also issue notices to the heirs of 23 other people killed in the Dec 27, 2007, attack.

He said the prosecution lawyers had provided the court a list of the victims.

The court did not take up a bail application of former Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz and SP Khurram Shahzad after the FIA said the Lahore High Court had been approached to get further physical custody of the officers.

A division bench of the LHC will take up the criminal revision application on Monday. The FIA has challenged an ATC order of Dec 29 denying a request of the investigators for nine-day physical remand of the police officers for further interrogation.

The FIA has submitted that it wants to recover the mobile phone sets that were in use of the officers on the day of the attack, alleging that they had submitted sets made in 2009.

“Forensic examination of their mobile sets is required to determine with whom they made contacts on the day and it will help the investigators to reach the people behind the assassination,” prosecution lawyers told the LHC.

They said the officers were accused of abetting the murder and helping the killers and requested the LHC to ask the trial court to grant custody of both officers for nine more days.