Musharraf in heated denials over Bhutto

Beijing News.Net
Thursday 3rd January, 2008

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has angrily denied allegations that his government orchestrated the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

In a 90-minute session with foreign journalists, he said Ms Bhutto was repeatedly warned about threats from Islamic militants.

President Musharraf, in an emotional conference, said there was no cover-up of Bhutto's slaying and the Western press was unfairly labelling Pakistan as violent and unstable.

He assured the press members that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was completely safe.

In response to a question about whether his government had blood on its hands in Bhutto's gun-suicide attack, he said: 'I'm not a feudal, I am not a tribal; I have been brought up in a very educated and civilized family, which believes in values, which believes in principles, which believes in character'.

'My family is not a family that believes in killing people, in assassinating, intriguing', he said, adding Islamic militants linked to the Taliban and Al Qaeda had attempted to kill him on several occasions.

He said: 'I am not a fraud. I am not a liar. Please understand Pakistan. It is a different country than your own'.

Musharraf spoke at length about Bhutto's government-provided security in the weeks leading up to her death, saying he and his administration had repeatedly warned her of suicide bomb plots.

The president said Bhutto had picked her own security detail leader and key officers from a list provided by the government.

On the day she was assassinated, he said, there were 1,000 policemen deployed around her.

In the aftermath of Bhutto's murder, government officials made contradictory statements about whether she had been shot or died after cracking her head on the sunroof of her security vehicle.

Rumours of a government cover-up after the blast site was immediately cleaned by fire hoses following the attack prompted Musharraf to invite British investigators from Scotland Yard to join the case.

He acknowledged it was wrong to scrub the crime scene before forensic work could be done, but denied that intelligence agencies had ordered local street cleaners to do so.

Pakistan has been reeling since Bhutto's death, which forced the country's national election commission to postpone crucial polls scheduled for next week until Feb 18th.

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