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Pakistan's Musharraf acquitted in tribal elder's murder case

Xinhua, January 18, 2016 Adjust font size:

A court in Pakistan acquitted former president Pervez Musharraf on Monday in the murder case of a tribal elder, his defence lawyers said.

Nawab Akbar Bugti, a Baloch nationalist leader, was killed in a military operation in southwestern Balochistan province in 2006, when Musharraf was ruling the country.

An anti-terrorism court in the city of Quetta also acquitted former Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao and former Balochistan Home Minister Shoaib Nosherwani.

The court also rejected a petition of Bugti's son Jamil Bugti for exhuming the grave of Akbar Bugti.

Suhail Rajput, lawyer for the petitioner, said he will challenge the verdict at a high court.

The murder case had been registered against the former president on a court order in 2009, a year after he stepped down.

Judge Jan Muhammad Gohar in a short verdict ordered acquittal of Musharraf and two other accused.

Musharraf faces several other cases that include high treason for abrogating the constitution and the 2007 murder case of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Musharraf, who resigned in 2008, returned to Pakistan in March 2013 after four years of exile. Enditem