Pakistan orders arrests of police in Bhutto case

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has ordered the arrest of two senior police officers on allegations they failed to provide adequate security for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto before her 2007 assassination, a prosecutor said on Sunday.

Bhutto's assassination was one of the most shocking events in Pakistan's turbulent history and remains shrouded in mystery.

"The court has issued warrants and these are non-bailable. They can be arrested anytime," special prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told Reuters.

"The officers failed to provide adequate security to Bhutto, denied her a post-mortem and were also responsible for hosing down the scene of the killing immediately after the crime," the prosecutor said.

Ali named the two police officials as Saud Aziz, former police chief of the city of Rawalpindi, where the attack took place, and one of his deputies, Khurram Shahzad.

Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Dec. 27, 2007.

A report by a United Nations commission of inquiry released in New York in April said any credible investigation should not rule out the possibility that members of Pakistan’s military and security establishment were involved.

It heavily criticized Pakistani authorities, saying they had "severely hampered" the investigation.

"Several senior police officials who know Saud Aziz were troubled that an officer with his many years of experience would allow a major crime scene to be washed away, thereby damaging his reputation," said the report, adding that some senior police officials identified factors suggesting he was not acting alone.

The initial investigation blamed a Pakistani Taliban leader and al-Qaeda ally, Baitullah Mehsud, for Bhutto's murder.

Mehsud, who had denied involvement in Bhutto's assassination, was killed in a U.S. drone attack in August 2009 in the lawless South Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan.

The U.N. report said no-one believed the 15-year-old suicide bomber who killed Bhutto acted alone, and the failure to examine her death effectively appeared to be deliberate, but the commission did not say who it believed was guilty.

Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister, returned from self-imposed exile weeks before she was assassinated, to stand for election.

Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, led her Pakistan People's Party to election victory in February 2008 and is now the head of state.