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Shahbaz cleared of murder charges

ISLAMABAD: Shahbaz Sharif, brother of Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif, is free to contest by-elections after an anti-terrorism court in Lahore court acquitted him of murder charges.

Mr. Sharif’s candidacy for the February 18 elections was rejected on the ground that he was facing charges of ordering police to kill three militant suspects when he was the Punjab Chief Minister between 1997-1999.

On Saturday, the court acquitted Mr. Sharif after he took an oath before the judge that he had not ordered the killings.

The petitioners — the murdered men’s families — accepted Mr. Sharif’s oath, and the court ordered the charges dropped.

Mr. Sharif has already been named the leader of the PML (N) in the Punjab Assembly. The party has the largest number of seats in the Assembly and is poised to form the government in the politically important and powerful province.

In Rawalpindi, police investigating the killing of Benazir Bhutto filed preliminary charges in an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi, accusing the Waziristan-based Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud of masterminding the assassination. Four suspects have also been named in the charge-sheet.

The judge issued a non-bailable warrant of arrest against Mehsud and the four others.

The spate of terrorist attacks in the country continues unabated underlining the challenges ahead for the new government.

The death toll in Friday night’s blast in Mingora in the North West Frontier Province has risen to 50.

A suicide bomber attacked a funeral procession for a police officer who was killed earlier in the day along with three constables in a roadside bomb blast in Lakki Marwat. The suicide bomber mingled with the large number of mourners. Among those killed was the police officer’s son, who was one of the pall bearers

The country was still trying to make sense of his bloodbath when a suicide bomber struck again on Saturday morning in Bajaur tribal agency, killing two persons and injuring 21, mostly security personnel. The bomber rammed his explosive-filled car into a vehicle belonging to tribal police in a village near Khar, the main town in the agency. A civilian and a security official succumbed to injuries in hospital.

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