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ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf Thursday said there was no government involvement in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto but admitted he was unsatisfied with the probe into her death.
For the first time since Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide attack that his government blamed on Al-Qaeda, he acknowledged reports that the crime scene had been quickly hosed down, possibly destroying evidence, after her murder.
One week after the popular opposition leader was killed at a campaign rally, and just a day after he said Scotland Yard would send investigators to help, Musharraf conceded he was "not fully satisfied" with the probe so far.
"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," Musharraf told reporters summoned to the presidential palace for a news conference.
"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," he said.
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has ridiculed the government account of her death, which said that the shooter had missed her and that she had died fracturing her skull by smashing her head against her vehicle's sunroof.
"One should not give a statement that's 100 percent final and that is a flaw that we suffer from," Musharraf said, referring to previous interior ministry statements about how Bhutto died.
The PPP demanded a UN investigation, something government officials have ruled out, but Musharraf announced Wednesday, in his first major address to the nation since Bhutto's death, that a Scotland Yard team was on the way.
Many Bhutto supporters have angrily blamed the president for her death -- if only for failing to provide adequate security after Bhutto survived Pakistan's worst-ever terror attack in October, which left scores dead.
Asked if he had "blood on his hands," Musharraf said the question was "below my dignity" but that he wanted to give a public answer in any case.
"My family by any imagination is not a family which believes in killing people, assassinating, intriguing," he said. "That is all that I want to say."
The postponement of January 8 polls until February 18 has been criticised as a ploy by Musharraf loyalists in the government to rob the PPP of any sympathy vote it may have won in the aftermath of Bhutto's slaying.
The PPP, the country's largest party, has alleged the delay is an attempt to give Musharraf's allies time to fix the result.
However, he denied that the poll would be tainted.
"You will see that there is no possibility of rigging," the president said.
Pakistan's opposition parties meanwhile demanded better security Thursday as they prepared for a lengthy election campaign.
They confirmed they would resume the race to restore democracy here but said the government must ensure candidates are protected from the dangers posed by anyone determined to disrupt the polls.
"We would like the government to provide foolproof security to Sharif, including a bulletproof vehicle," said Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the party of two-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
"We will continue our election campaign but we are revising the party chief's programme of public engagements in view of the current security situation."
Pakistan's government had provided Bhutto with a bulletproof vehicle and police security but many of her supporters blame Musharraf for failing to stop the gun and suicide-bomb attack which killed her last Thursday in Rawalpindi.
Her October 18 homecoming from self-imposed exile saw 139 people killed in a twin suicide bombing on her convoy in Karachi.
Sherry Rehman, spokeswoman for the PPP, said Bhutto's widower and the party's de facto new leader, Asif Ali Zardari, would lead the campaign for the February 18 polls after its mourning period ended early next month.

The Pakistani Government today published a picture of what it said was the severed head of the suicide bomber who killed Benazir Bhutto and offered a reward of almost £83,000 to anyone able to identify him.

Amid growing criticism of the police investigation into the opposition leader's killing, two pictures featuring men believed to be involved in the Rawalpindi shooting and suicide bombing were published today in Jang, the country's biggest-selling Urdu-language daily.

As well as an image of the severed head of a clean-shaven man who police suspect to be the bomber, another image - taken in the minutes before the blast - shows a young man wearing sunglasses and a dark waistcoat staring at the camera with a man wrapped in a white shawl standing directly behind him.

Alongside the pictures, the Government published a statement saying: "The people’s co-operation is being sought in this tragic incident and a picture of the criminals is being released."
It offered a reward of 10 million rupees (£82,645) for any information about the men, adding: "The name and address of the informant will be kept secret."

Later, in what appeared a further attempt to silence opposition anger over the conduct of the investigation, President Musharraf reversed the Pakistani Government's previous position and announced that he had requested foreign police help, with Scotland Yard sending out a team of officers by the end of the week.

The moves came amid huge tension between President Musharraf and his political opponents over the investigation into Ms Bhutto's killing.

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP), now headed by her widower, disputes Government claims that she died after cracking her head on the her car sunroof handle, pointing to a number of video and photographic images showing that she was shot as she waved to crowds before a suicide bomber blew himself up in the seconds afterwards.

Offers of assistance in the investigation have so far come from the United States, Britain and France.

ISLAMABAD, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Slain former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) announced Wednesday that it had not decided on what choices it would make on the postponement of parliamentary elections.

Addressing a news conference, newly-elected Co-Chairman of the PPP Asif Ali Zardari said that his party had to consult with other political parties on elections postponement.

Some local media quoted party sources as saying that the PPP would still contest the elections despite the postponement.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced on Wednesday that the polling date, which was originally set on Jan. 8, would be postponed till Feb. 18.

Zardari earlier said that any delay of the elections would be unacceptable to the PPP.

President Pervez Musharraf said at a televised address that the ECP was forced to come to its decision because of the damage incurred in riots following Bhutto's assassination.

Musharraf also disclosed that the government had invited a Scotland Yard forensic team to help probe Bhutto's assassination.

Zardari questioned why the Scotland Yard was not invited when Bhutto was attacked in Karachi on Oct. 19. Twin suicide bombing attacks hit Bhutto's procession, killing more than 140 people and injuring hundreds of others.

WASHINGTON, Jan 1: The US Defence Department has awarded a $498.2 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp to supply 18 F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.

The decision is in line with a senior US official’s assertion that the Congressional restrictions on providing $50 million in military aid to Pakistan would not affect the sales of F-16 aircraft.

“The F-16 programme is a Pakistani purchase, their money, they’re buying them,” said Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs. “And our foreign military finance, our military assistance goes for different purposes and is not involved at this point in the F-16 sales.”

On Monday, the Pentagon released a list of defence contract awards, which include an authorisation for Lockheed to sell 12 F-16C and six F-16D planes to Pakistan.

The F-16C is a single-seat aircraft while the F-16D is a two-seat flying machine. Pakistan already has a fleet of F-16AM, which is an upgraded single-seat version of F-16A.

During the Soviet-Afghan war, Pakistan Air Force’s F-16s shot down at least 10 Afghan and Soviet ground attack and transport aircraft between 1986 and 1988.Pakistan is to get 18 new F-16C/D fighters by 2010 besides upgrades for its current fleet of 34 F-16 combat aircraft as part of a $2.1 billion deal for new weapons, avionics, engines, and other equipment for F-16 fighters announced in September last year.

Lockheed, the Pentagon’s No. 1 contractor, won a $144 million contract in 2006 for materials needed to build the F-16s.

Pakistani F-16s will be equipped with AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM, AIM-9M-8/9, JDAM, Harpoon Block II, Joint-Helmet Mounted Cueing System, CFTs and possibly IRIS-T.

All 18 new aircraft will come from Block 50-52, first delivered to the US Air Force in late 1991.

KARACHI, Jan 1: The Central Executive Committee and Federal Council of the Pakistan People’s Party will meet at the Bhutto House in Naudero on Wednesday afternoon to discuss issues relating to the coming election.

Announcing this here on Tuesday, PPP’s central information secretary Sherry Rehman demanded that the elections must be held on schedule.

On Monday, the party’s co-chairman Asif Zardari had declared that his party would not accept a postponement of the polls ‘on any pretext’.

Sherry Rehman referred Mr Zardari’s statement that while the PPP was going for the elections despite being in a state of shock to save the federation, undemocratic forces had started hunting down PPP workers to create a chaotic situation in order to run away from the elections.

Wednesday’s meeting would be followed by consultations with other parties in case the elections were deferred for long, Ms Rehman said, adding that the PPP would not let the regime run away from the polls.

Meanwhile, Mr Zardari has blamed the government’s allies and instruments for the violence taking place in the country.

Mr Zardari pointed out that members and workers of the PPP, after their initial shock and mourning were preparing for the elections to fulfil the mission for which Benazir Bhutto had laid down her life.

He said the PML-N and PPP had both decided to participate in the elections, like other democratic parties.

“The regime should stop perpetrating violence and its scheme to wriggle out of the elections, Mr Zardari added.

Ms Rehman said that since Ms Bhutto’s assassination on Thursday, the regime had been slowly retracting from its pledge to hold the elections on January 8, “come what may”.

There was a general consensus that after the tragic events of Dec 27, PML-Q’s popularity had hit rock bottom and postponement of the elections was aimed at buying time to come up with means to rig polls to turn the results in its favour.

She said there were reports that the regime and the PML-Q were planning to resort to the “dirty” tactics of maligning the PPP leadership in the intervening period.

A delay in the polls, she added, would also give more space to extremist and terrorist elements to plunge the country into a ‘dangerous whirlpool of disaster’.

“Over 100,000 PPP workers had been picked up on false charges by the regime in order to harass the party into submission,” she said, adding that there was absolutely no excuse for locking up innocent polling agents and workers, and the regime was instigating violence to delay the polls.

“When the party that has lost its leader and is in mourning is itself demanding that the polls be held on time, then what business does the regime have to delay polls? The excuse of burnt electoral rolls is a flimsy one as all rolls are in electronic form as well and can be replaced in hours,” she said.

“Delaying polls is just an excuse for the caretaker regime to buy time to invent other means to send the PML-Q back to power. We will not accept that. This whole exercise is to protect the king’s party, whose graph is plummeting, and to prevent the PPP from sweeping the polls.

We will not settle for a delay and we demand that all our workers booked on false charges all over Sindh be released.”