Policemen walk past a poster honoring former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Lahore. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
ISLAMABAD - PAKISTANI police on Wednesday arrested two senior police officers for alleged dereliction of duty over the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a prosecutor said.
Bhutto was assassinated almost exactly three years ago in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election campaign rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad, on Dec 27, 2007.
In April, a UN panel accused the government of failing to provide Bhutto with adequate protection and said investigations were hampered by intelligence agencies and other officials who impeded 'an unfettered search for the truth'.
A Rawalpindi court this month issued warrants for the arrest of Saud Aziz, who was city police chief at the time of the killing, and Khurram Shahzad, another senior policeman for their 'failure' to protect Bhutto.
The pair were arrested at the court on the sidelines of a trial of five alleged Pakistani Taliban militants - who have yet to be indicted and are little known - detained in the weeks after the assassination.
'Both of the police officers have been arrested. The court rejected their application for bail and the judge said 'this was their duty to carry out the post-mortem',' special prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told reporters. -- AFP
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