PAKISTAN:Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, yesterday rejected claims that a security lapse led to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and dismissed speculation that elements within the country's security and intelligence agencies may have been involved in her murder.
Speaking to reporters one week after Ms Bhutto was killed at an election rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, Mr Musharraf said he had asked British police to assist in the investigation in order to quash suspicions about official complicity.
"We don't mind going to any extent, as nobody is involved from the government or agency side," he said, adding that uncertainty remained over the exact cause of Bhutto's death.
Pakistani officials initially claimed that the former prime minister was killed when the force of a bomb blast caused her head to slam against the vehicle she was travelling in at the time. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) insists she died from gunshot wounds. Her family and supporters have called for a wider UN-led investigation into the assassination.
"One should not give a statement that's 100 per cent final. That's the flaw that we suffer from," Mr Musharraf said, adding that new evidence had emerged since.
Referring to the team of British detectives due to arrive this week, he said: "We needed more experience, maybe more forensic and technical experience that our people don't have."
Denying that there had been a security lapse at the rally, Mr Musharraf appeared to imply that Ms Bhutto, who was waving at supporters through the sunroof of her vehicle at the time of the attack, was partly responsible.
"Who is to be blamed for her coming out of her vehicle?" he asked, pointing out that others in the vehicle had not been hurt.
Ms Bhutto had been allowed to have the police superintendent of her choice in charge of her security that day, Mr Musharraf told reporters. He said it was the responsibility of her party to prevent supporters from pressing around her vehicle, as any police action would have resulted in a baton charge or the firing of tear gas.
The government had previously warned her of security risks, he said, but she had ignored the warnings.
He said he was not satisfied with certain aspects of the investigation so far, including the hosing down of the bomb site hours after the attack, but he rejected any suggestion there was a plan to conceal or eliminate evidence.
"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," Mr Musharraf said.
"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."
Outlining the threat from pro-Taliban militants whom Pakistani authorities have blamed for the assassination, Mr Musharraf said such groups were responsible for 19 suicide attacks against Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies in the last three months.
Discussing the country's forthcoming elections, he said they would be "free, fair, transparent and peaceful". On Wednesday the country's election commission announced that polls originally scheduled for next week would be postponed until February 18th. The postponement has been criticised by opposition figures as a ploy to reduce any sympathy vote the PPP may have won in the aftermath of their leader's assassination.
The PPP has claimed the delay is an attempt to provide Mr Musharraf's allies with time to rig the election, an allegation the president dismissed as "baseless". "You will see that there is no possibility of rigging," he added.
Mr Musharraf's news conference came amid growing calls for him to resign before next month's elections to prevent further instability.
The International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based research institute, said Ms Bhutto's death had "drawn the battle lines even more clearly between Musharraf's military-backed regime and Pakistan's moderate majority, which will settle for nothing less than genuine parliamentary democracy".
Unless Mr Musharraf steps down, the ICG warned, tensions will worsen and the international community may face "the nightmare of a nuclear-armed, Muslim country descending into civil war from which extremists would stand to gain".
"It is time to recognise that democracy, not an artificially propped up, defrocked, widely despised general has the best chance to provide stability and turn back extremists' gains," said Robert Templer, ICG's Asia director.
Javed Hashmi, a senior member of PML-N, the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said Mr Musharraf had been utterly discredited.
"While he is in office, the people in Pakistan cannot believe there can be free and fair elections," Mr Hashmi told The Irish Times.
"It is impossible. He should resign without delay."