Musharraf dials Scotland Yard for truth about Bhutto

“We decided to request a team from Scotland Yard to come. I sent the request to (British) Prime Minister (Gordon) Brown, and he accepted the request,” Musharraf said, adding that the British team would “assist our investigators on our weaknesses,” so that “doubts will be removed.”

“We would like to know what were the reasons that led to the martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto. I would also like to look into it,” Musharraf said in a nationally televised address.

Musharraf’s nearly 30-minute speech was his first major address since Bhutto’s death. “This is a time for reconciliation and not for confrontation,” he said. “The nation has experienced a great tragedy. Benazir Bhutto has died in the hands of terrorists. I pray to God almighty to put the eternal soul of Benazir at peace,” he said.

Pakistan’s Election Commissioner Chief Justice (retired) Qazi Muhammad Farooq also argued that the “month of Moharramul Haram is likely to commence from January 10 and as per reports received from the Chief Secretaries, there will be full-fledged commitment of security/law enforcement agencies towards maintaining peace and tranquility an the sanctity of the holy month, and as such, will not be available for performing election duties.”

Musharraf justified this decision to delay the polls to “whatever the date EC has decided” saying he was committed to holding “free, fair, transparent and peaceful elections.”

Even as life in Pakistan’s major cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi was returning to normalcy, PPP and PML (N) condemned the decision to defer the polls, whereas the pro-Musharraf PML(Q) approved of it.

Musharraf’s bid to get foreign help in Bhutto’s assassination comes at a time when questions are being raised over the government’s version of the circumstances of her death and Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party demanding a foreign probe on the lines of the UN investigation into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

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