RAWALPINDI: The Anti-Terrorism Court on Friday gave the FIA physical remand of former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf in the Benazir Bhutto murder case. Geo News reported.
The retired General who is already serving a two-week house arrest, set to expire on May 4 for sacking judges when he imposed emergency rule in November 2007, was presented before the ATC on Friday morning where he was served the fresh remand order which he will serve concurrently.
Joint Investigation team to Interrogate
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) says a joint investigation team will interrogate General (retired) Pervez Musharraf regarding why Benazir Bhutto’s post mortem was stopped, whether the retired General threatened Bhutto in 2008 over the phone, and on whose authorization did the Interior Ministry conducted the press conference after Bhutto’s death.
Mark Siegel agrees to testify
The FIA has also contacted American journalist Mark Siegel, an important witness whom the FIA has requested to appear before a trial court to record his testimony. Sources add, that Siegel has agreed to the FIA’s request.
In Court today
Pervez Musharraf appeared before the ATC in Rawalpindi for his remand hearing under tight security. He is accused of conspiracy to murder former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who died in December 2007.
"We requested a three-day remand of retired general Pervez Musharraf and
judge Chaudhry Habib-ur Rehman gave a three-day remand and adjourned the case until Monday," prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar told.
The formal application seeking physical remand of Musharraf had been submitted before the ATC on Thursday.
The ATC had also allowed the FIA to include Pervez Musharraf in the investigation of Benazir Bhutto murder case. Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar represented FIA and presented his arguments while Afshan Adil Advocate represented Pervez Musharraf.
After listening to the arguments, the court had allowed FIA to formally arrest Musharraf and include him in the investigation.
Musharraf is accused of involvement in a conspiracy to murder Benazir Bhutto, who died in a gun and suicide attack in December 2007. It is one of the three cases he is fighting in the courts since returning home last month after four years in self-imposed exile.

PARIS: Enigmatic traces of water in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter came from a comet that crashed into the giant planet in 1994, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Tuesday.
Astronomers have been debating the water for 15 years after telltale molecules were spotted by an infrared telescope.
Some argued the water brewed up from lower levels of the gassy planet, but others said it could not have crossed a "cold barrier" separating the stratosphere from the cloud level below.
ESA's deep-space Herschel telescope has now found that most of the water is concentrated in Jupiter's southern hemisphere.
The molecules are clustered at high altitude around the sites where 21 fragments from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 whacked into Jupiter in July 1994 in one of the most spectacular recorded events in astronomy.
The collisions left dark scars in Jupiter's roiling atmosphere that persisted for weeks.
"According to our models, as much as 95 percent of the water in the stratosphere is due to the comet impact," said Thibault Cavalie of the Bordeaux Astrophysics Laboratory in southwestern France.
Other potential sources, including water vapour disgorged by one of Jupiter's icy moons or interplanetary particles of icy dust, can be ruled out, he said in a press release issued by ESA.
The study appears in the European journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Comets are believed to be primeval balls of ice and dust left over from the building of the Solar System.
Cometary bombardment is believed by some experts to have provided the infant Earth with its abundance of water, the stuff of life. (AFP)

LONDON: Nearly a century after they were killed in action, four British First World War soldiers will Tuesday finally be laid to rest with full military honours.
The soldiers, two of whom have been identified, are to be re-interred in the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) Cemetery at Ecoust-Saint-Mein near the northern town of Arras in a ceremony attended by relatives and Prince Michael of Kent.
Lieutenant John Harold Pritchard and Private Christopher Douglas Elphick were both killed during an attack by German forces near Bullecourt on the Hindenburg Line on the morning of May 15, 1917.
Their bodies were discovered with two other sets of remains in 2009 when a local farmer was clearing a field.
Pritchard, 31 at the time of his death, was identified by a silver identity bracelet, and Elphick, 28, by a signet ring bearing his initials.
A former chorister and head boy at St Paul's cathedral school, Pritchard had joined the HAC as a reservist in 1909 and was part of the first wave of British soldiers to be sent into action when war broke out in 1914.
Injured in 1915, he could have opted for a desk job in London but chose to return to France, surviving the horrors of the Somme in 1916 before being slain as he led his men into a battle in which they were almost all killed.
Elphick, an insurance clerk, had joined up in 1915 and arrived in France in November 1916, three months after the birth of his son, Ronald Douglas, who was to serve in the HAC during World War II.
Ronald Douglas's sons, Chris and Martin Elphick, are due to attend Tuesday's ceremony while the Pritchard family are to be represented by his nephew Harold Shell and great nieces Janet Shell and Jennifer Sutton.
Prince Michael, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, will be present in his role as HAC Royal Honorary Colonel.
The two sets of unidentified remains will be interred as "HAC soldiers known unto God."
It is understood DNA samples have been taken to enable positive identification of the unknown soldiers should any relatives come forward in the future. (AFP)

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft is expected to unveil in May a successor to Xbox 360 videogame consoles that have been evolving into hubs for home entertainment in the digital age.
Microsoft sent out invitations Wednesday to a May 21 event at its main campus in Redmond, Washington at which Xbox team will reveal a "new generation."
Industry tracker NPD Group reported last week that as of the end of March, the Xbox 360 had been the top-selling console in the United States for 20 consecutive months.
More than 70 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide since they were introduced in November 2005.
A new-generation Xbox would take the field against the latest offerings from Sony and Nintendo.
Sony announced a new generation PlayStation 4 system in February and laid out its vision for the "future of gaming" in a world rich with mobile gadgets and play streamed from the Internet cloud.
Sony spoke ambiguously about the device, leaving much to the imagination during a two-hour presentation in New York City.
Industry insiders anticipate learning more from Sony and Microsoft, and perhaps even getting their hands on new consoles, at a premier E3 videogame conference that will take place in Los Angeles in June.
Low-cost or free games on smartphones or tablet computers are increasing the pressure on videogame companies to deliver experiences worth players' time and money.
Features being incorporated into new consoles include games relying on connections to servers in the Internet "cloud" and synching play, movie viewing and social networking with tablets, smartphones and other devices.
A PlaySation App will let iPhones, iPads or Android-powered smartphones or tablets be used as "second screens" augmenting play taking place on televisions connected to PS4 consoles, according to Sony.
Sony said the PS4 would hit the market in time for the year-end holiday season but did not provide details.
The PS4 will succeed PlayStation 3 consoles that began their lifespan in late 2006.
Nintendo released a new-generation Wii U console late last year but said on Wednesday that the Japanese firm "was not able to maintain the initial sales momentum after the beginning of 2013 due to a delay in the development of subsequent software titles."
Nintendo has been banking on the Wii U to boost its fading fortunes after the original Wii, launched in 2006, proved a huge success as it lured legions of casual gamers with motion-sensing controls.
With the Wii U, Nintendo vowed to start a trend in "asymmetrical play" that gives players using GamePad tablets different in-game perspectives and roles than those using traditional wand controllers.

MADRID: A 16th century religious tapestry which police suspect was stolen by one of Europe's most prolific art thieves from a cathedral in Spain in 1979 has returned to the country after an odyssey that took it to five countries.
Culture Minister Jose Ignacio Wert and Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz presented the wool and silk tapestry, depicting the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, Thursday at a Madrid news conference a day after it was handed over to Spanish officials from the US customs service.
The US Homeland Security Investigations unit seized the artefact last November from the unidentified Texas business that had bought it at auction three years ago for $369,000.
The tapestry had been stolen in December 1979 from the Cathedral of Saint Vincent in Roda de Isabena in the Aragon region of northeastern Spain "apparently" by Rene Alphonse Van Den Berghe, also known as Erik the Belgian, a police spokesman said.
Van Den Berghen is suspected of carrying out several heist of artworks from churches across Europe.
The tapestry was one several works of art that were taken during the break-in at the cathedral in Roda de Isabena, a fortified town in the Spanish Pyrenees, the Spanish culture and interior ministries said in a joint statement.
"Since its theft in 1979 the tapestry has made many trips as it was successively bought and sold in the art market and it passed through five countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, France and finally the United States," it said.
The tapestry was identified in 2010 by a researcher from the Museum of Lleida, Carmen Berlabe, who spotted it on sale in an online catalogue of a gallery that specialises in the sale of old tapestries in the Belgian city of Mechelen, the police spokesman said.
Police then launched their investigation which led to its discovery in Houston.
The tapestry will now undergo a restoration by the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute, a unit of the culture ministry.

KARACHI: Residents of Lyari on Thursday staged protest against the alleged Rangers operation, suspending traffic form Shershah and Tower to Karachi port, Geo News reported.
Early commuters faced difficulties in reaching their work places as the road was blocked near ICI Bridge.
Activities at the Karachi port were also badly affected due to the protest.

VIRGINIA: An American citizen of Pakistan origin has been arrested for allegedly issuing threats to County officials, Geo News reported here on Thursday.

According to reports, Saad Lodhi was taken into custody after being accused of issuing threats to County authorities.

According foreign media reports, Saad Lodhi started making threats after federal lawsuits he filed against Fairfax County were dismissed.

The reports said Lodhi sent threatening emails to several county officials.

(Source: Geo News)