Pakistani anti-terror court Saturday indicted two police officers and five alleged Taliban militants over the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a prosecutor said.
“Seven accused including two police officers have been indicted,” public prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar told media.
The police officers were Saud Aziz, who was the Rawalpindi police chief at the time of the killing, and Khurram Shahzad, another senior policeman.
Nobody has been jailed yet for Bhutto’s assassination.
Nobody has been convicted or jailed for Bhutto's assassination on December 27, 2007, in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad, in a gun and suicide attack after she addressed an election rally.
The death of the charismatic, Oxford-educated Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim nation, threw the country into chaos, sparking violence and months of political turmoil.
Police say that three other suspects in the high-profile case have been killed -- including the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud -- and two remain at large.
Her assassination on December 27, 2007, came just weeks after she returned to the country.
The five alleged militants are accused of "criminal conspiracy" for bringing the suicide bomber from the tribal belt in the northwest and keeping him at a house in Rawalpindi.
All the accused denied the charges and demanded for trial," Azhar said, adding that the police officers were accused of a security breach and for their "failure" to protect Bhutto.
Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack in August 2009, one of the most high-profile casualties of the covert American campaign targeting al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border.
Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister, had returned from exile two months before she was killed to stand for election.
Her widower Asif Ali Zardari led her Pakistan People's Party to election victory in February 2008 and is now president.
Police were arrested a year ago while the suspected militants have been in custody for nearly four years.
The seven were indicted at the court in a high-security prison in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad where Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election campaign rally.
Her assassination on December 27, 2007, came just weeks after she returned to the country.
Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack in August 2009, one of the most high-profile casualties of the covert American campaign targeting al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border.
Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister, had returned from exile two months before she was killed to stand for election.
Her widower Asif Ali Zardari led her Pakistan People's Party to election victory in February 2008 and is now president.
Police were arrested a year ago while the suspected militants have been in custody for nearly four years.
The seven were indicted at the court in a high-security prison in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad where Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election campaign rally.
Her assassination on December 27, 2007, came just weeks after she returned to the country.
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