RAWALPINDI: The police commando charged with killing Punjab governor Salman Taseer asked to be one of his bodyguards, a witness told a Pakistan court Saturday.
Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri has been charged with terrorism and murdering Taseer, who had urged for reforms to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, on an Islamabad street on January 4.
Qadri has confessed to killing Taseer, saying he objected to the politician's calls to amend the laws, which mandate the death penalty for those convicted of defaming Prophet Mohammad.
“Three prosecution witnesses, all policemen, made their statements today in the court,” Shujaur Rehman, one of Qadri's lawyers, told AFP outside the prison.
“One of the witnesses, a police constable, told the court that Qadri had asked to be assigned duty with the governor,” Rehman said, adding that the court adjourned the hearing until April 2.
The hearing was held behind closed doors at the high-security Adiyala prison, in Rawalpindi, making prosecution lawyers and witnesses’ statements inaccessible to reporters who have to rely on what defence lawyers say.
Leaders of the ruling Pakistan People's Party have asked why Qadri was deployed to Taseer despite being declared a “security risk” by a senior police official nearly two years ago.
Around 150 people rallied outside the prison where the hearing took place, chanting slogans in support of Qadri.
The killing of Taseer was the most high-profile political assassination in Pakistan since former prime minister Benazir Bhutto died in a gun and suicide attack in December 2007.
Earlier this month, unknown attackers shot dead Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minority affairs minister who had also called for reforms in the blasphemy laws.
The Catholic politician, who had complained of death threats, was gunned down as he left his mother's home in a residential area of Islamabad.
While no-one has ever been sent to the gallows under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, activists say the statutes are used to attack others out of personal enmity or business disputes.
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