It was mid-afternoon while I was sitting in my office as Director FIA/Immigration and Anti-Smuggling, Islamabad and I received a call from Major General Naseerullah Khan Babar (Retired), the then Minister for Interior, who asked me to visit his residence at 06:00 pm. Upon reaching there, I was told that Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto wanted to see me in connection with some important case.
I met the Prime Minister at her
office in the presence of Maj Gen Babar (R) when she asked me to investigate
the mystery of the death of her brother Shahnawaz, who died in Cannes in France
because the French authorities, when requested, hardly shared any details of
his death. We are still unaware of the facts of the case.
She emotionally recalled the
final moments, when Shahnawaz Bhutto was with his wife in the early evening on
the day before he was found dead. They had a long chat after coming from a picnic
on the seaside. She further narrated that Shahnawaz was happily preparing
barbeque on the beach in the afternoon and the whole family enjoyed being
together after a very long time. He looked very happy and in his usual smiling
way said goodbye with the promise to come in the morning to me as we had
decided to go for a walk the next morning. She could not reconcile with the
proposition that such a jolly and brave young man like him could commit suicide
to finish himself.
She asked me to get her the
details as she wanted to know the facts and the cause of his death and
accordingly, she asked me to proceed immediately to Cannes.
On my way to Cannes, I preferred
to travel through Marseilles—the last city of residence of Shahnawaz Bhutto. I
wanted to meet my sources for further information relating to the murder of
Shahnawaz Bhutto, who was in the same area about 11 years ago. He indeed was
very helpful in this matter. Along with my team members, I reached Nice in the
night where I met the then Investigating Officer Inspector Decloitt, who was at
that time posted in Nice. He narrated the details of the investigation and the
circumstances under which the wife of Shahnawaz Bhutto, Ms. Rehana Shahnawaz,
one of the daughters of Mr Fasihuddin, a senior officer of Afghan Foreign
Office, was released and later flew out of France in a hurry and she was fully
facilitated by the local authorities despite knowing fully well that she was the
prime suspect in this high-profile murder case. Her elder sister Fauzia was
married to Murtaza Bhutto, the elder brother of Shahnawaz Bhutto. After knowing
about the alleged involvement of her sister in Shahnawaz’s murder, Murtaza
Bhutto divorced his wife Fauzia.
It was a very complicated case as
apparently, the French authorities had closed this matter after her departure
to the US whereas three deputed magistrates on this case at different times were
unable to proceed in this matter—the magistrates in French judicial system are
highly educated and are public servants though those maintain a high degree of
impartiality and independence from political or any other influence—were
transferred on their request. Their transfer requests made the matter more
mysterious for me and I grabbed this as a lead for the investigation to get to
the facts and secrets which forced these judicial magistrates to opt for
transfer rather than being part of the trial. This lead provided us with enough
information to work in the right direction and led us to the facts which
unfolded more aspects of the case when we examined the available police record
and visited the crime scene. The crime scene was his small apartment in Cannes,
a resort town on the French Riviera, which is famed for its international film
festival.
The apartment was on the hill
with a beautiful scene of the sea on the front. It was surprising to see that
he was living in a very simple small flat with his wife and daughter, Sassi
Bhutto. He used to love his daughter a lot. Shahnawaz Bhutto entered his flat
on July 17, 1985 happily but was found dead in that flat on the very next day,
where his wife Rehana was also present at the time of death. She, while not
calling for any emergency service to save his life, also informed the family of
his death on the next day. It was another lead to suspect her, besides being an
eye-witness, as privy to the murder of her husband. Undoubtedly, Shahnawaz
Bhutto died under mysterious circumstances and the Benazir Bhutto family
believed that he was murdered. No one was brought to trial for murder, but
Shahnawaz’s wife Rehana was considered as a prime suspect by the French authorities
who remained in their custody for some time with substantive leads against her.
She was allowed to leave for the US while she was still under
trial/investigation against the wish of the investigators. I was told in
guarded words that the French authorities were left with no choice except to
allow her to leave the country on the request of the US authorities.
We all know that the French law
is governed under a foolproof criminal justice system and how could a suspect
leave for the USA during the trial? According to our confirmation, this case
was still pending on trial hence Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was right to conclude
that it was a mysterious murder where there was no trial.
The then French Investigating
Officer was fully in agreement with my conclusion of suspicion of murder with
the wife as the prime suspect, and he was also not fully convinced on the
grounds on why she was allowed to leave the country as the prime suspect. Moreover,
the French police charged her only for not helping her dying husband and wanted
to proceed further as to why she did this criminal act but the investigation
could not proceed further as she got away with the aid of the powerful. It is
believed that she allowed her husband to die as she knew that the poison would
act fast and he subsequently would be declared dead as a result of a fatal
heart attack as per the proven symptoms of this lethal poison.
The police demonstrated the
poison by giving it to a cat and it died with the same symptoms as reported in
the medical reports. We then discovered that the investigation conducted by the
French police had recovered an empty vial of poison, which was, according to
experts of toxicology, only produced in Israel and the US in very low
quantities, not more than 1 kilogram by these two countries, although it was
not elaborated in the investigation report but explained verbally. However, our
inquiries revealed that it was only used to eliminate important targets. It is
believed that both the brothers managed to get this from Syria during their
stay. Another official, when taken into confidence, explained that both the
brothers Murtaza Bhutto and Shahnawaz used to keep vials of poison, for their
own use in case of capture by Pakistani authorities, which they had obtained
from Syria. It was their mutual decision that they would never allow themselves
to be arrested by Zia’s secret agents. It was a big lead for us to follow. It
was also confirmed by the police that the vials were kept in a briefcase in a
small bottle and only his wife Rehana knew about it. It was on the police
record that Shahnawaz Bhutto had asked for her help, but she chose to let him
die and did not call for any emergency services. The police officer further
informed us that there were intelligence reports of Rehana repeatedly meeting a
CIA agent in Cannes and we managed to get pictorial evidence, which is now in
the case file of FIA.
Beyond this, what we found was
shocking; that a war poison vial was mixed secretly in a drink in the kitchen
and it was mixed before serving it to Shahnawaz Bhutto as the empty bottle of
the drink was found in the kitchen whereas the empty vial was found in the
kitchen dustbin. It was quite surprising that the poison produced in Israel
eventually landed in the hands of its arch-rival, the then Syrian President
Hafiz Al-Assad. No one associated with the investigation could answer the
question as to how the Syrian authorities could get hold of that poison but
there were some indications that it was passed on via Lebanon to Syria. After
returning from France, I contacted Col Riaz, who gave me multiple clues
including the background of the two sisters and how they were planted on both
the brothers. He further narrated that their father spent a major period of
time as an officer of Afghan Foreign Service in the US and was on the payroll
of the CIA.
According to Raja Anwar, an
author, journalist and former advisor in the ZA Bhutto regime (1971-77), the Al
Zulfiqar Organization (AZO) was formed by Bhutto’s sons, Murtaza and Shahnawaz,
in 1979. Anwar joined the outfit in 1980. In his 1997 book on the AZO, Anwar
wrote that being young, the two brothers decided to instigate a revolutionary
movement against Gen Zia’s dictatorship, which had sent their father to the
gallows in 1979 through a controversial trial. The execution of Capt. Tariq
Rahim by hijackers, considering him to be the son of Gen. Rehimuddin Khan,
forced the Zia-ul-Haq regime to accept the demands of the hijackers, releasing
dozens of Pakistan People’s Party and other leftist political prisoners
languishing in Pakistani jails. This was the time when Benazir Bhutto was also
imprisoned in Karachi and she straightaway condemned this hijacking from jail.
I could see why she condemned it as she never endorsed AZO and always opposed
it and she could foresee it as a conspiracy designed to undermine PPP. She as a
true leader had rightly predicted it. An inside investigation later revealed
that Mr Tipu was used for the execution of this engineered hijacking plan
without the knowledge of both Bhutto brothers.
I prepared a detailed and lengthy
investigation report which was personally handed over to the Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto with Begum Bhutto present alongside the then Interior Minister.
Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto kept weeping during my briefing and it
was a very painful sight indeed. PM Benazir Bhutto endorsed the report and
appreciated the investigation at depth by unearthing the facts.
The article was published in The Nation on November 23, 2021, Link to the original article. https://nation.com.pk/23-Nov-2021/uncovering-the-mystery-shahnawaz-bhutto-s-murder
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