Musharraf’s arrest warrant in Benazir murder case sent to UK Foreign Affairs Dept.
March 10th, 2011 - 12:12 pm ICT by ANI
Islamabad, Mar 10(ANI): The Pakistan Government has sent the arrest warrant for former president Pervez Musharraf in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case to British authorities.
According to Interior Ministry sources, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) sent the warrant to Pakistan’s High Commission in London, which forwarded it to the UK Foreign Affairs Department.
“We have received the arrest warrant and sent it to the UK authorities,” the Dawn quoted an assistant to High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hassan, as saying.
Musharraf, who has been accused of not providing adequate security to former Prime Minister Benazir, is reportedly in Dubai these days.
He was Pakistan’s President when Benazir was targeted in a gun and bomb attack as she was leaving Liaqat Bagh in Rawalpindi after addressing a public rally on December 27, 2007.
A Joint Investigation Team (JIT) headed by FIA officials had earlier served an arrest warrant at Musharraf’s farmhouse in Chak Shahzad, Islamabad, on the orders of the Anti-Terrorism Court-III in Rawalpindi.
A source in Interpol said there were two separate processes to bring the former military ruler back to the country- extradition through legal process and directly through an administrative process of Interpol- but extradition from the UK is a complex issue because Pakistan and the UK do not have an extradition treaty.
“But even then Pakistan handed over many wanted people to the UK during the Musharraf regime,” the source added.
In the absence of a treaty, Interpol will have to issue a ‘red notice’ against the former president. “But Interpol always acts on a case-to-case basis and sometimes it only locates an accused and provides information to the relevant government,” the source said.
About the legal course of extradition, the source maintained that after issuing an arrest warrant against a person, the country would have to send a formal letter to the legal authority or courts of the country where the accused lived, requesting his extradition.
Musharraf’s spokesman has repeatedly said the former military ruler will not be going back to Pakistan for any court hearing.
Musharraf is alleged to have been part of a “broad conspiracy” to have his political rival Benazir killed before elections, though the exact nature of the charges against him is not clear. (ANI)
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