Suspect #1 Denies Killing Bhutto
ISLAMABAD, Dec. 29 (AP) - (Kyodo)—An al-Qaida-linked Pakistani militant on Saturday rejected government accusations of involvement in the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
In a telephone conversation with Kyodo News, Baitullah Mehsud’s spokesman Maulvi Umar said that Bhutto was killed for political considerations.
“Benazir Bhutto was assassinated clearly by people who wanted to gain politically from her death. This is the work of (intelligence) agencies and the Pakistani government,” he said.
Maulvi Umar said the Pakistani government is blaming Mehsud to bring the Pakistani Taliban into disrepute in Pakistan and crush their growing power.
He said the Pakistani Taliban shared the grief of the people of Pakistan and the world at large at the assassination of Bhutto.
Pakistan’s Interior Ministry on Friday said telephone call intercept indicates that Mehsud was behind the assassination.
In the intercept, Mehsud “congratulated his people for carrying out this cowardly act,” ministry spokesman retired Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema told a press conference.
Mehsud is a tribal leader who was arrested in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States and taken to Guantanamo Bay.
He was released and on return to Pakistan organized his own militant group based in Pakistan’s Waziristan tribal area. Mehsud was also accused of having masterminded the Oct. 18 suicide attack on a Bhutto rally in Karachi in which more then 100 people were killed.
Bhutto, who headed the opposition Pakistan People’s Party, was killed in a gun and bomb attack at the end of an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.
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“He said the Pakistani Taliban shared the grief of the people of Pakistan and the world at large at the assassination of Bhutto.”
Doubt that.
December 29th, 2007 at 5:31 pm