Presidency dismisses BB’s email

By Ashraf Mumtaz

LAHORE, Dec 30: A spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday dismissed as ridiculous reports about an email the slain PPP chairperson had reportedly sent to a CNN staffer saying that President Musharraf would be responsible if anything happened to her.

Benazir Bhutto’s husband Asif Zardari said at a news conference at the Naudero House on Sunday that the email was self-explanatory and should be treated as a dying statement of Ms Bhutto.

Media reports say that Ms Bhutto wrote to Wolf Blitzer that if anything happened to her “I would hold (President Pervez) Musharraf responsible”.

“It’s a ridiculous statement which doesn’t deserve a comment,” president’s spokesman Maj-Gen (retd) Rashid Qureshi said.

He said: I don’t want to dignify it by offering any comment on it.”

Mr Blitzer received the said email on Oct 26 from Mark Siegel, a friend and long-time Washington spokesman for Ms Bhutto, eight days after she narrowly escaped an attempt on her life on Oct 18.

Ms Bhutto wrote to Blitzer: “I have been made to feel insecure by his (Musharraf’s) minions; that specific improvements had not been made to her security arrangements, and that the president was responsible.”