Pakistan ex-leader Musharraf charged in Bhutto death

Naila Inayat | Special for USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Pakistan charges Musharraf with Bhutto's murder Pakistan's ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf is indicted on three counts over the murder of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who died in a gun and suicide attack in December 2007. His lawyer maintains his innocence.

Benazir Bhutto died in 2007 during a gun and bomb attack

Musharraf took power in 1999 coup and stepped down almost a decade later

Musharraf is now confined to his house on the outskirts of Islamabad

LAHORE, Pakistan -- The murder indictment Tuesday of Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's former military chief and president, in the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is the first time an army chief has been charged with a crime in Pakistan.

That means the landmark case is sure to draw the powerful military, which has ruled Pakistan for about three decades, into the fray. And a decade-long rivalry between the country's two most powerful political families will be stirred into the judicial process.

Musharraf, 70, was indicted by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and facilitation of murder.

"We have evidence against him, which will be presented in (the) next hearings," said prosecutor Chaudhry Muhammad Azhar, who detailed the charges against the former president and six others accused of complicity.

Musharraf, who returned from a self-imposed exile in London this year hoping to run in May elections, was instead put under investigation for Bhutto's murder as well as the death of a nationalist leader of the state of Balochistan in 2006, and for ordering the house arrest of the country's top judges in 2007.

Musharraf denies the charges.

"These charges are baseless," his lawyer Syeda Afshan Adil, told Agence France-Presse. "We are not afraid of the proceedings."

Bhutto, twice prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, was killed in a gun and bomb attack after she returned from years of exile in 2007 to run in federal elections. She had struck a deal with Musharraf allowing her to return, although the then-president warned her that she faced threats to her life.

Musharraf, himself the target of at least two failed assassination plots, has blamed her assassination on the Taliban. A United Nations commission investigation blamed his government for failing to protect her.

"Responsibility for Ms. Bhutto's security on the day of her assassination rested with the federal government, the government of Punjab and the Rawalpindi District Police," the 2010 U.N. report said. "None of these entities took necessary measures to respond to the extraordinary, fresh and urgent security risks that they knew she faced."

Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is now president. His political archrival, Nawaz Sharif, who once promoted Musharraf before being overthrown and jailed by him, is prime minister — and will have a say in how aggressively the state will push for the former army chief's conviction.

The charges have prompted speculation about underhanded dealings.

"I fail to understand how they can blame Musharraf for the assassination of Benazir," said Noreen Ejaz, 20, a university student. "Why didn't Bhutto's ruling party take up the charges in the last five years? Nawaz Sharif and the chief justice have teamed up to settle their scores against the former army chief, and nothing is really going to happen."

Mohammad Waseem, a professor of political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences, said other actors, including foreign powers such as the United States, are involved.

"There are three internal (players) — the army, the judiciary and the elected government -- and two external — Saudi Arabia and United States," he said. "Two of them — the government and the judiciary — want to prosecute Musharraf, while the other three will resist it."

The trial, which is expected to start Aug. 27, is likely to sow further division in the already fragmented Pakistani society. Though his image as a political leader has been tarnished by the charges of murder and the impeachment proceedings that forced his resignation in 2008, Musharraf's nine years in office are remembered by some Pakistanis as a time of relative stability and prosperity.

"Our politicians refuse to learn from their mistakes. Is charging Musharraf the only concern Pakistan has?" asked Haroon Malik, 35, a retailer. "We don't have electricity, there is no security and the future of our children is at stake, but the new government has no clear policy on these serious issues. Musharraf did make mistakes, but then even his staunch critics believe that his eight-year rule brought stability to us."

Others say he is a ruthless dictator who suppressed his enemies with an iron fist, among them ethnic minorities such as the Balochs in the west of the country.

"An example can be set by convicting the former army chief, and a lesson will be learned by the military establishment, who has never allowed democracy to prevail in the country," said Tahir Gardezi, 28, a Balochi living in Lahore. "It was in his time that the gap between Balochs and the rest of Pakistan widened, and he should be tried for killing nationalist leader Akbar Bughti."

Regardless, locals say they expect the trial to drag on and mean little.

"Musharraf might go abroad at some point, leaving these cases pending," Waseem said. "This procedure will be symbolic, not practical. It will be a sort of bargain between the two sides."

Contributing: Victor Kotsev from Berlin