ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A lawyer for an alleged al Qaeda-linked militant said Wednesday that he asked a court to halt the sale of a book by slain ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto that he claims defames his client.
Bhutto's allegations in "Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy & the West" that Qari Saifullah Akhtar was involved in an October bombing in Karachi that killed some 150 people are "baseless," lawyer Hashmat Habib said.
Habib said he is also seeking more than $200 million in damages from the British publishers of Bhutto's book, Simon & Schuster, printers, sellers, and her widowed husband Asif Ali Zardari as her heir and "beneficiary."
Habib said an additional session court in Islamabad had issued notices to the defendants to appear Sept. 5.
Court officials could not immediately be reached for comment, and neither could a spokesman for Zardari, who leads the main party in Pakistan's government.
Bhutto survived the October attack, which targeted her motorcade as supporters welcomed her back from exile.
She was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack in December in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Bhutto had finished writing the book shortly before her assassination.
Bhutto's book was published in early February, and Akhtar was arrested shortly after. He was freed in June and was not formally charged.
Akhtar has previously faced accusations of links to two failed assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf and allegations that he ran an al Qaeda training camp at Rishkhor in Afghanistan, which was visited by Osama bin Laden.
The lawyer has acknowledged Akhtar used to be a commander of an Islamic guerrilla faction that fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but says Akhtar has renounced militancy and denies involvement in the Karachi bombing.
Habib said Akhtar is an "an internationally recognized mujahed (warrior) of Islam," who had been arrested several times but was never tried by any court.
"All of these allegations are baseless and concocted ... the book should be withdrawn from all the sale points throughout the world," Habib said.
He also demanded that the defendants apologize for damage caused to Akhar's reputation.
