Ziauddin Butt

General Ziauddin Khawaja, also known as Ziauddin Butt, is a four-star general of the Pakistan Army and a career operations and infantry formations commander, head of intelligence and engineering officer.

Ziauddin has served as Director-General of Pakistan's premier intelligence agency ISI. He was nominated for the post of Pakistan Army chief on 12 Oct 1999 by then-Prime minister Nawaz Sharif after the dismissal of General Pervez Musharraf, who had begun a coup against the government. The coup went ahead regardless of this appointment as Ziauddin told his supporters not to resist the move as it would cause dangerous in-fighting among the army. Both Sharif and Ziauddin were arrested by the coup-makers and taken to different locations. Ziauddin was kept in solitary confinement for two years, and was subject to three army investigations which aimed to find some element of wrongdoing on his part. Musharraf decided to use a 'scouts penalty' – a discretionary punishment not requiring a crime, to dismiss General Ziauddin from service.

He revealed in October 2011 that according to his knowledge the then former Director-General of Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan (2004 – 2008), Brigadier Ijaz Shah, had kept Osama bin Laden in an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad.