By DPA
Islamabad : Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf Thursday angrily denied allegations that his government orchestrated the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, saying she was repeatedly warned about threats from Islamic militants.
In a 90-minute session with foreign journalists invited to the taping of his weekly political show at the Presidential Palace, Musharraf, by turn emotional, charming and funny, said there was no cover-up of Bhutto’s slaying, the Western press was unfairly labelling Pakistan as unstable, and the country’s nuclear arsenal was completely safe.
“I’m not a feudal, I am not a tribal – I have been brought up in a very educated and civilized family, which believes in values, which believes in principles, which believes in character,” Musharraf said sharply in response to a question about whether his government had blood on its hands in Bhutto’s gun-suicide attack slaying a week ago.
“My family is not a family that believes in killing people, in assassinating, intriguing,” he said, adding Islamic militants linked to the Taliban and Al Qaeda had attempted to kill him on several occasions. “There are people who are gunning for me.”
Nuclear-armed Pakistan has been reeling since Bhutto’s death, which forced the country’s national election commission to postpone crucial polls scheduled for next week until Feb 18.
Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the country’s other main opposition party, denounced the delay.
Officials from both parties have also accused rogue elements within the government or Pakistan’s shadowy security services of ordering the hit on Bhutto to scuttle the elections meant to bring a return of civilian government after eight years of military rule under Musharraf.
“Who is the maximum gainer?” Musharraf asked an audience of more than 100 foreign television, radio and print journalists. He flatly denied that members of his security services would have the ability or motive to train suicide bombers and unleash them on Pakistani politicians such as Bhutto.
Rather, said Musharraf, looking far more relaxed and rested than during a televised address to the nation Wednesday night to discuss the election delay, Islamic extremists had both a motive and ability.
For the second time in two days, he blamed Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban commander based in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas near Afghanistan, and Fazlullah, a radical Islamic cleric whose armed followers took control of the north-west Swat valley before being recently beaten back by the army.
Musharraf said his intelligence services had traced most of the 19 suicide bomb attacks against military targets in the north-west region in the past three months to both men. He said the attacks had killed around 400 people and wounded more than 900.
“We know there are people who want to disrupt the democratic process, to disrupt the government,” he said. “I think that elections are the answer. Let an elected government come into place and handle this crisis.”
Musharraf spoke at length about Bhutto’s government-provided security in the weeks leading up to her death, saying he and his administration had repeatedly warned her of suicide bomb plots.
He said an envoy from a Western country – he did not say which one – had also warned the pro-democracy icon that she was in danger.
The president said Bhutto had picked her own security detail leader and key officers from a list provided by the government.
On the day she was assassinated in the city of Rawalpindi by an attacker who apparently shot her in the head and neck before blowing himself up, there were 1,000 policemen deployed around her.
In the aftermath of Bhutto’s murder, government officials made contradictory statements about whether she had been shot or died after cracking her head on the sunroof of her security vehicle.
Rumours of a government cover-up after the blast site was immediately cleaned by fire hoses following the attack prompted Musharraf to invite British investigators from Scotland Yard to join the case.
While calling Bhutto’s death a tragedy, Musharraf said she was ultimately responsible because she did not heed warnings about her security. He acknowledged it was wrong to scrub the crime scene before forensic work could be done, but denied that intelligence agencies had ordered local street cleaners to do so.
Referring to crime scenes in London, he said to laughter and applause: “You are so disciplined. You put up the yellow tape. People stand behind the yellow tape. You put a wall here (in Pakistan), they will try to climb over the wall and break it.”
Musharraf also asked for understanding from the Western media and foreign governments for Pakistan’s attempts to move from military rule to democracy and its battle against Islamic extremism.
“I am not a fraud. I am not a liar,” he said. “Please understand Pakistan. It is a different country than your own.”