ISI chief advised her 'not to attend rally'
The security officer of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto has told an anti-terrorism court that the director general of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in 2007 had advised her hours before her assassination not to attend the public meeting at Liaquat Bagh.
Recording his statement recently before the ATC in Rawalpindi, then senior superintendent of police, retired Major Imtiaz Hussain, said ISI director general Lt Gen Nadeem Taj and Maj Gen Ehsan met Bhutto on the night between Dec 26 and 27, 2007, to discuss her security.
He said Lt Gen Taj and Maj Gen Ehsan tried to persuade Bhutto not to address the Liaquat Bagh rally. "The former prime minister had told me that intelligence agencies, the ISI chief and Maj Gen Ehsan had informed her about the security threat to her life," he said.
A retired army officer privy to the development told Dawn that the ISI chief's meeting with Bhutto lasted a couple of hours. The army had received information from different sources, including intercepts, that suicide bombers had entered Rawalpindi and they could kill Bhutto before, during or after the public meeting and that the information was passed on to the late PPP leader, he added.
Maj Imtiaz, who is a prosecution witness in the Benazir murder case, was posted as security officer of the former prime minister on Oct 16, 2007. He said in his court statement that Ms Bhutto had directed him to travel with her, along with his weapon, and sit in the vehicle on the front seat alongside the driver.
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