Pakistan court issues Musharraf arrest warrant

A Pakistani court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for former president Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Shaukat Aziz over the killing of a Baluch rebel leader, a lawyer said. Musharraf was president and Aziz prime minister when the main leader of the rebel movement in southwestern province Baluchistan, tribal chieftain Nawab Akbar Bugti, died in a cave hideout during an army raid in August 2006. Bugti led an armed campaign to press for provincial autonomy and a greater share of profits from Baluchistan's natural resources. The death of the colourful, British-educated chieftain sparked angry protests in the country. "Today the judicial magistrate in Quetta has issued an arrest warrant for both Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz," Adnan Kasi, a lawyer representing Bugti's elder son Jamil, told AFP. The arrest warrant would be sent to the federal government to take steps to present the accused in court, Kasi said. Bugti's elder son went to the highest court in Baluchistan in 2009, seeking to register a murder case against Musharraf and Aziz. Musharraf lives in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai. A Pakistani court in Rawalpindi this year issued a warrant for his arrest over the assassination of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto in a gun and suicide attack in 2007. Prosecutors accuse him of failing to provide her with enough security and an arrest warrant was issued in February. In August, the same anti-terrorism court ordered the confiscation of his property and the freezing of his bank accounts in the country. Opposition leaders at the time of Bugti's death accused the Musharraf government of targeting him in an operation that also killed at least seven soldiers and 17 tribal insurgents in fighting and air strikes. Aziz denied the killing was deliberate, saying Bugti died when a mountain hideout collapsed under fire from forces responding to militant attacks.