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SHABANA HAMMAD left Britain six years ago to live like a princess in Pakistan. She had servants, chauffeurs, a government house in one of Islamabad's exclusive gated enclaves and a high-flyi
From The Sunday Times (London)

May 20, 2007

Hitmans bullet widows British princess

Dean Nelson, Islamabad

SHABANA HAMMAD left Britain six years ago to live �like a princess� in Pakistan. She had servants, chauffeurs, a government house in one of Islamabad�s exclusive gated enclaves and a high-flying husband with a reputation for being one of the country�s most honest officials.

Last week the dream was shattered when her husband answered a knock on the door and was shot dead in front of her, apparently by a professional hitman.

In an interview with The Sunday Times at the family home, Shabana, 30, explained that she had left Rochdale, Greater Manchester, six years ago to marry.

She planned to start a family and build an idyllic life with her husband Syed Hammad Amjad Raza, 36, a senior civil servant working for Iftikhar Chaudhry, the now suspended chief justice.

�I led the life of a princess in this country,� she said. �When I went back to the UK people would ask if it was difficult. But we had countless servants, drivers, a government house. Now everyone is calling me to say they�re sorry and all the judges are crying.�

Shabana believes her husband was murdered because of his support for the chief justice, who is engaged in a power struggle with President Pervez Musharraf. She now fears for her family�s safety and has asked the British high commission in Islamabad for help.

According to Hammad�s friends and colleagues in the Supreme Court, he had been under intense pressure from the government�s feared intelligence service to provide evidence against his boss. The government has promised a thorough investigation, but claims Hammad was shot during a robbery, even though nothing was stolen.

�He was loving, brave and brilliant but he kept his office in his office and never talked about his work,� his widow recalled. �He was kind to his servants and treated their children well. Now everyone in Pakistan is crying for him.� She and Hammad had originally set up home together in Baluchistan province, where Chaudhry was chief justice. When he was appointed chief justice for Pakistan in 2005, they and their three children, a daughter aged five and two sons, aged four and 11 months, followed him to Islamabad.

They moved into their new house in a guarded compound for elite civil servants four months ago and she felt secure there. Her husband�s job brought them status and she was proud when a photograph of him welcoming Cherie Blair to the Supreme Court appeared in the newspapers last year.

Shabana and her husband were getting ready for morning prayers last Monday when they heard a loud knock. It was 4.10am and Hammad hurried to the door to stop the noise waking his elderly father.

Four men were standing on the step. As Shabana watched, one of them simply shot her husband in the head. �It was the way he was shot. He didn�t resist. They didn�t ask for anything. It was a single shot in the head and only a professional person can do that, someone trained,� said Professor Syed Mohammad Hayat, Shabana�s father.

Aitzaz Ahsan, the chief justice�s lawyer, said Hammad was one of a number of Chaudhry�s staff who had been questioned by the intelligence services after their boss was suspended and accused of misconduct and misuse of power. He claimed Hammad had been pressured to give a statement implicating Chaudhry.

�Hammad was subjected to the third degree because he was a staff officer and any statement he might have made about corruption would have carried enormous weight � he was a highly respected, elite civil servant,� said Ahsan. He added that his evidence could have exposed the government�s brutality and damaged its case against the chief justice.

Since his suspension two months ago the chief justice has become a focal point for opposition to Musharraf and his following has rattled the government.

The president�s decision to suspend him was widely seen as a political move to oust an independent-minded judge who could have been an obstacle to Musharraf�s plans to gerrymander a second term before elections expected in November.

Last weekend a mass rally to welcome the chief justice to Karachi ended in a bloodbath that left up to 50 dead in a struggle between the opposition and parties loyal to the government.

As police stood by, gunmen loyal to Musharraf�s local coalition partners surrounded the High Court and a television station and fired at lawyers and journalists inside. Bodies were left in the street because ambulances could not get past government roadblocks. One doctor told how police officers refused to intervene when a gunman forced his way into his surgery to �finish off� a wounded opponent.

Shabana is determined that her husband�s killers must be found. �We want justice to be done. These people should be brought to book. We want to know the truth and only that will satisfy me,� she said.