Pakistani police on Saturday formally accused the top Taliban leader in the country and four others of planning the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.Police filed preliminary charges in court against Baitullah Mehsud, who has been named by the Pakistani government in the December 27 killing of Bhutto in a suicide and gun-attack during a public rally. Mehsud is underground and it is not clear if the police are anywhere close to catching him.“Police submitted preliminary charges in the Bhutto case before an anti-terrorism court, and the judge issued non-bailable warrants of arrest against Baitullah Mehsud and four other accused,” said Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, the chief investigator in the case.Although Mehsud was named by President Pervez Musharraf within days of the assassination, the filing of the preliminary charges Saturday completes a legal formality. It is the first legal step before an arrest can be made.Mehsud is the commander of Tehrik-e-Taliban, an umbrella group of Islamic militant groups linked to al-Qaida. Mehsud is believed to be based in the volatile South Waziristan province at the border with Afghanistan, and has been blamed for a series of suicide attacks across Pakistan.Majeed refused to give details of the police investigation into the specific roles that the suspects are accused of playing in the assassination.“The suspects, declared absconders in the case, were involved in planning to kill Benazir Bhutto,” he told Associated Press.He said the others named in the charges are Ibadur Rehman, Imramullah, Faiz Muhammad and Abbdullah. All five are accused of being involved in planning and financing the assassination plot, he said. Imramullah and Abbdullah use only one name. Police have already arrested five suspects in connection with Bhutto’s killing including Husnain Gul, who allegedly facilitated Bhutto’s attacker because he wanted to avenge the death of a friend in a military attack on a mosque last year.Gul and his cousin, identified only as Rafaqat, were arrested recently. Other suspects include a 15-year-old boy Aitezaz Shah and two others, Sher Zaman and Abdul Rasheed, who supplied arms to the attacker, identified as Saeed alias Bilal.Majeed said earlier that police were still looking for another man, Ikramullah, who had been assigned to attack Bhutto if she escaped the first blast.Shahbaz acquittedLAHORE: A Pakistani court acquitted Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, on Saturday in a case of unlawful killing, paving the way for him to contest a by-election, his lawyer said. Shahbaz Sharif is expected to become chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s richest province and home to half its 160 million people, where their Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) party won in the legislative elections. With the legal case cleared, Shahbaz Sharif can contest a by-election. Both Sharif brothers, Nawaz, the prime minister President Pervez Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, and his politician brother Shahbaz, were barred for legal reasons from standing in the February 18 polls, in which their party came second.A court in the city of Lahore acquitted Shahbaz Sharif on Saturday over accusations of involvement in the extra-judicial killing of five militants in 1998, when he was the chief minister of Punjab province.The court ordered Sharif’s acquittal after the complainant, Saeed-ud-Din, the father of one of the men killed, withdrew his case against Sharif, his lawyer, Imtiaz Kafi, told Reuters.
