[Dawn] The investigation into the liquidation of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is likely to be expanded to unveil some faces, who have so far been out of picture, after two jugged former coppers have told Sherlocks that some intelligence officials were in contact with them on Dec 27, 2007.In a related development, the interior ministry has sent a questionnaire to former president Pervez
PervMusharraf
... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
currently living in London to record his statement.
The Federal Investigation Agency obtained on Thursday six days' physical custody of former chief of Rawalpindi city police Saud Aziz and SP Khurram Shahzad to recover the cellphones they were using on the day the former prime minister was assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack outside Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh.
The agency had sought a 12-day remand, but the special judge of Anti-Terrorism Court-III granted six days.
The two former coppers were taken into custody on Wednesday after a trial court hearing the case cancelled their pre-arrest bail.
Special Public Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told news hounds after the court proceedings that jugged officers had informed the Sherlocks that four officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence had been in contact with them.
But he said that their names could not be disclosed now because it was yet to be ascertained in what context they were in contact with the accused.
If concrete evidence was found against the intelligence officers they would be included in the investigation.
The FIA Sherlocks said in the court that forensic tests of the cellphones were needed to ascertain who had been in contact with the two coppers on the day of Benazir's liquidation.
Advocate Zulfiqar said that phone data would help the Sherlocks to know if other elements were also involved in the murder.
He said the coppers had given divergent statements about the cellphones and the numbers used by them three years ago. First they said they had lost the phones and later claimed that these had broken up.
Advocate Malik Muhammad Rafique, the counsel for Saud Aziz, said the cellphone data could be collected from the mobile companies concerned, and not from the coppers. It was surprising, he said, that the Sherlocks had sought the data three years after the incident.
The two coppers were brought to the court without handcuffs in a van with windows covered with newspapers.