The Hindu : Front Page : “Benazir ignored my warning”

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Friday, Jan 04, 2008
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“Benazir ignored my warning”

Nirupama Subramanian

No security lapse, says Musharraf

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday said Scotland Yard would not investigate “wild accusations” by Benazir Bhutto of who should be held responsible if she was killed. He held her partly responsible for her death in Rawalpindi on December 27 last as she threw security precautions to the winds.

Scoffing at accusations that he or the country’s intelligence agencies had conspired to kill Benazir, General (retd.) Musharraf said he had personally warned her not to take risks but she “ignored” him. He ruled out any security lapse, and said the Pakistan People’s Party leader had been provided adequate security cover. He made these remarks on Pakistan Television’s weekly show “From the Presidency,” during which he takes questions from foreign journalists.

The President appeared relaxed, confident, and took a volley of tough questions. His message to the reporters was that they knew nothing about Pakistan and all their information was “wrong.”

Asked if he had Benazir’s blood on his hands, General Musharraf said, “I am not a feudal, I am not a tribal. I’ve been brought up in a very educated and civilised family, which believes in principles, believes in values and in character. My family does not believe in killing people, assassinating people.”

When told that many Pakistanis believed the ISI was responsible for the killing, he said the country’s intelligence agencies were not “capable of indoctrinating a man to blow himself up.” There was no doubt, he said, Beithullah Mehsud and Mullah Fazlullah, Taliban warlords who were behind the recent terror wave in Pakistan, also carried out the attack on Benazir.

Benazir went to the Liaquat Bagh rally “of her own volition,” he said and asked “who should be blamed” for her decision to emerge from the sunroof of her vehicle and wave to the crowd.

He described as “baseless accusations” Benazir’s statements that three persons — including the former Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Elahi and the head of the Intelligence Bureau Ejaz Shah — should be held responsible if anything happened to her. Scotland Yard would not go into these allegations that had “serious political implications.”

“While I also want to go into how she died and who did it, I would not like anyone to go on a wild goose chase and start creating more political turmoil,” he said.

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