Islamabad (ANTARA News/AFP) – Pakistani police have arrested a fifth man on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in December, an investigator said Friday.
The suspect, identified as Abdur Rasheed, was taken into custody from a house in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday and is described as a key member of the gang that plotted Bhutto`s murder.
“Abdur Rasheed was a key member of the gang and was involved in providing weapons to the group members,” a senior police investigator told AFP.
Rasheed was not at the scene of the killing, he said.
He was produced before a magistrate where he recorded his statement, another investigator said.
“He confessed his supporting role in the assassination plot,” he added.
Four Islamic militants, two arrested from the northwest frontier region and another two from Rawalpindi, are already under interrogation.
Police say two of them, Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat, who goes by one name, confessed before a court on Wednesday to having plotted the attack to avenge government raids on a radical mosque in the capital Islamabad which killed more than 100, mostly militants.
Bhutto, who was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack on December 27, was the target of militants because she had backed the government`s action and was seen as pro-Western, according to investigators.
The Pakistani government and the United States Central Intelligence Agency have accused Baitullah Mehsud, an Al-Qaeda-linked militant commander based in the tribal area of South Waziristan, of masterminding the attack.