Bhutto case: Mush to face murder trial

An anti-terrorism court on Tuesday indicted former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on charges of murder and conspiracy in the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Musharraf was charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and facilitation of the murder of the two-time former premier along with seven other coaccused.

This is the first time a former military ruler or an army chief has been indicted in a murder case in Pakistan, which has been ruled by the military for most of its 66-year history.

The 70-year-old former President was brought under heavy security to the anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi. If convicted, he can be sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

Musharraf denied the allegation in the court and

claimed the charges were politically motivated. His name was not in the list of accused till 2008; later his name was included on the basis of an email sent by Benazir Bhutto to US journalist Mark Segal. In the mail, Bhutto had named three people who should be charged if she is murdered: one of them was Musharraf. None of the other men named in the email have been charged. As Pakistan plunged into turmoil after Bhutto's death, Musharraf's government had accused slain Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud for the assassination. Mehsud's name was removed from the list of accused after he was killed in a US drone attack in 2009. After the hearing on Tuesday, Musharraf did not talk with reporters and left for his farmhouse on the edge of Islamabad where he is under house arrest in a host of other cases. Bhutto was killed in suicide attack in Rawalpindi shortly after addressing an election rally on December 27, 2007. It was the second major attack on her since she returned to Pakistan in October 2007 after years of selfimposed exile. About 140 people were killed in the first suicide attack on Bhutto in Karachi. Musharraf was President when she was killed. He had warned Bhutto of dangers to her life before she returned. Musharraf has already been granted bail in the case and on Tuesday the court accepted his application to excuse him from day-to-day hearings of the case because of security reasons.