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Pakistan’s ex-President Musharraf acquitted in murder case

Baloch leader Akbar Bugti was killed in an operation in Balochistan’s rugged mountains of Taratani in Kohlu district on August 26, 2006.

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The anti-terror court’s ruling regarding the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti was confirmed by lawyers on both sides.

Pakistan’s former president General Pervez Musharraf has been acquitted in the murder case of former Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti by an anti-terrorism court in Quetta on Monday.

Mr Musharraf still faces charges in other cases, including over Benazir Bhutto’s 2007 assassination, and treason charges for imposing emergency rule in 2007.

Musharraf ordered a military crackdown in Balochistan in late 2005 after being targeted by a rocket attack while visiting the province.

Suhail Rajput, lawyer for the petitioner, said he will challenge the verdict at a High Court.

A court in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, also exonerated two other former high-ranking officials in the murder case of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a former governor and the chief minister of Balochistan.

Bugti’s son, Jamil Bugti, accused the former military ruler of murder.

Bugti’s killing sparked nationwide protests and further fuelled an armed insurgency that began in 2004 in Balochistan.

Musharraf never appeared in the court during the entire legal process which had been in progress since 2009.

Former president Pervez Musharraf was indicted in the case in January 2015.

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Gen Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

Pervez Musharraf acquitted in murder case of Baloch nationalist Akbar Bugti