World | Pakistan
Top diplomat says wider conspiracy behind Bhutto's death
Pakistan's chief diplomat on Saturday questioned the guilt of a key Taliban suspect fingered by the CIA and the previous Musharraf government in Benazir Bhutto's assassination, suggesting a wider conspiracy was behind her death.
- AP
- Published: 08:41 July 13, 2008
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UN to investigate Bhutto killing
UN, Pakistan to set up panel to investigate Bhutto killing
New York: Pakistan's chief diplomat on Saturday questioned the guilt of a key Taliban suspect fingered by the CIA and the previous Musharraf government in Benazir Bhutto's assassination, suggesting a wider conspiracy was behind her death.
On Thursday the United Nations agreed to help in setting up an independent commission to investigate those whom the Pakistani foreign minister called "the conspirers, the financiers, the perpetrators, that led to motivating this assassination, and bring them to justice."
The assassination last December of the popular former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan People's Party stunned Pakistan and the world, and quickly set off a wide range of conspiracy theories, including the idea that Pakistan's powerful internal security agencies were involved and that Musharraf was culpable, or at least failed to prevent her slaying.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi declined to endorse accusations by President Pervez Musharraf's government and the CIA that Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani militant commander often blamed for suicide attacks, had orchestrated Bhutto's December 27 killing at a campaign rally before parliamentary elections.
Pakistan's Interior Ministry has released a wiretap in which Mehsud associates purportedly congratulated each other for her death. Bhutto had called for Pakistan to redouble its efforts against Islamic extremism.
"The point is we do not want to make premature allegations, because we want an impartial, independent inquiry," Qureshi told the AP in an interview Saturday at his hotel across from the United Nations building.
"We cannot jump to conclusions before the investigation is started," he added.
"What I'm saying is we cannot rule it out, you cannot rule it out that he was responsible, but you cannot say with certainty that he is responsible. Only the inquiry will determine who was or was not responsible," Qureshi said.
Mehsud is one of a number of warlords in Pakistan's lawless northwest provinces with whom the government is trying to negotiate a controversial peace deal. He denies playing a role in Bhutto's death.
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