Bhutto to hang for his part in murder plot
NZPA-Reuter Lahore The deposed Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was sentenced on Saturday to hang for ordering a political murder in 1974. Mr Bhutto, who is 50, was ousted in a military coup last July. He remained silent and appeared calm when the Lahore High Court passed the death sentence on him and on four other men. They were memb'—s of the
para-military Federal Security Force used y Mr Bhutto to keep public order during his five years as ruler of Muslim Pakistan’s 60 million people but now disbanded by the Army. The four former F.S.F. men were found to have been involved in the 1974 machine-gun attack on an opponent of Mr Bhutto’s, which the Court held that he had ordered.
The five had pleaded not guilty. They may appeal to the Supreme Court and then
to the civilian President, Fazal Elahi Chaudhury. The case against Mr Bhutto was that, in November, 1974, he ordered the killing of a politician, Ahmed Raza Kasuri, an outspoken critic. Mr Kasuri’s car was ambushed in Lahore, as he returned from a wedding, by gunmen in a jeep. He escaped, but his father, Nawab Mohammed Ahmed Khan, was fatally wounded. A feature of the trial was evidence given by Mr Masud
Mahmud, head of the F.S.F., >vho turned State’s witness. Mr Bhutto was driven in a police car, its windows covered with paper, to a condemned cell at Lahore Jail, about 15km from the city centre.
The new Army strongman, General Mohammed Zia-Ul-Haq, who rules by martial law, ordered tight security measures.
At least 500 supporters of Mr Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party were detained last week and his wife, Nusrat, and his daughter, Benazia, aged 24, are under house arrest.
In another security measure, Judge Hussain gave judgment 45 minutes before the scheduled time for court proceedings to begin. Journalists who rushed to the court found the hearing was over.
Trial judges had complained of threatening telephone calls and last week shots were fired in the air near the homes of three members of the bench. Bhutto, fiery Socialist aristocrat, Page 8
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Press, 20 March 1978, Page 1
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360Bhutto to hang for his part in murder plot Press, 20 March 1978, Page 1
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