Ex-President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday failed to appear before a Pakistani anti-terrorism court conducting the trial of suspects charged with involvement in the 2007 assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto and was subsequently summoned for the next hearing on April 23.
During proceedings held behind closed doors at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, Judge Chaudhry Habib-ur-Rehman summoned all the accused, including former military ruler Musharraf, for the next hearing.
Musharraf was summoned twice by the court but he failed to appear for Saturday’s hearing. The same court had earlier declared Musharraf a “proclaimed offender” or fugitive and issued an arrest warrant for him after he failed to cooperate with investigators probing the assassination.
Musharraf has also been accused of failing to provide adequate security to Bhutto when she returned to Pakistan from self-exile in 2007. After issuing the summons to the accused, the judge adjourned the case till April 23. Bhutto was assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack outside Rawalpindi’s liaquat Bagh ground shortly after addressing an election rally on December 27, 2007.