Agencies didn’t order cover-up: president

ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: President Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday he did not believe intelligence agencies had ordered any cover-up in the probe of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

One week after the Pakistan People’s Party leader was killed at a campaign rally, and just a day after he said Scotland Yard would send investigators to help, Mr Musharraf conceded he was “not fully satisfied” with the probe so far.

But he rejected suggestions he was involved in the murder.

For the first time since Ms Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide attack that his government blamed on Al Qaeda, he acknowledged reports that the crime scene had been quickly hosed down, possibly destroying evidence, after her murder.

“I am sure that they did not do it with an intention of hiding some secrets or that the intelligence agencies instructed them to hide secrets,” the president told reporters summoned to the presidential palace for a news conference. “If you are meaning that it was via design to hide evidence, no,” he said.

He said that the cleaning of the site was unnecessary, adding: “It should not have been done.”

“It is just inefficiency on the part of these people who think things have to be cleared and the road has to be cleared and traffic has to go through,” he said. He insisted there had been no security lapse.

He said Ms Bhutto had gone ahead with the rally while “ignoring the threats”. He said she was provided with adequate security, including a bullet-proof rostrum and a police chief of her choice for the area.

Two aides next to her in the car survived, he said, adding that she died only when she “(decided) to ride above the sunroof” of her vehicle.

Mr Musharraf said party officials should have stopped supporters from swarming her vehicle just before the attack, since any police action would have involved a baton charge or tear gas. He also implied her decision to greet the supporters through the sunroof contributed to her death, adding that those who remained inside were unharmed.

“Who is to be blamed for her coming out of her vehicle?” he asked.

The PPP has ridiculed the government account of her death, which said that the shooter had missed her and that she had died fracturing her skull by smashing her head against her vehicle’s sunroof.

“One should not give a statement that’s 100 per cent final and that is a flaw that we suffer from,” Mr Musharraf said, referring to previous interior ministry statements about how Ms Bhutto died.

A senior police investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said that police had already secured key evidence from the scene, including the head of the suspected bomber, body parts, two pistols, and mobile phones.

Many PPP supporters have angrily accused the president of failing to provide adequate security after Ms Bhutto survived an attack in October.

Asked if he had “blood on his hands”, Mr Musharraf said the question was “below my dignity” but that he wanted to give a public answer in any case.

“I am not a feudal and I am not a tribal. I have been brought up in a very educated and civilised family with beliefs and values, which believes in character,” the president said.

“My family by any imagination is not a family which believes in killing people, assassinating, intriguing,” he said. “That is all that I want to say.”

The government previously said the gunman shot and missed, but Ms Bhutto aides swore they saw bullet wounds on her body. Videos and pictures called the government explanation of how she died into question.

He denied reports Al Qaeda was getting stronger in Pakistan, but said the country faced an increasing threat from Taliban.—Agencies