Don’t know what good this will do.
The evidence scene was already washed away and all the evidence tainted and destroyed.
Mush has finally come to the realization that there is not a single Pakistani who trusts him anymore and the Pakistani people can only be put at ease if non-Pakistanis conduct this investigation.
Again a sad day for Pakistan.
Can’t imagine India or Iran asking for foreign help if one of their own was assassinated.
All due to the utter stupidity, total buffonrey and the sheer incompetence of this regime of Jokers and Clowns in Islamabad
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday defended the postponement of elections until February 18 after the killing of Benazir Bhutto, and invited Britain to help probe her death.
In his first major speech to the nation since her assassination, which set off widespread unrest, Musharraf said a Scotland Yard team would “immediately” come to help resolve doubts surrounding the circumstances of how she died.
The announcement could help appease mounting public anger over the official explanation that the opposition leader had died by hitting her head on her car sunroof in the gun and suicide attack at a campaign rally last Thursday.
“This is a very significant investigation. All the confusion that has been created in the nation must be resolved,” a stony-faced Musharraf said in a pre-recorded address broadcast on state television.
Pakistan’s interior ministry previously blamed the attack on an alleged Al-Qaeda militant, but also insisted that she had not been hit by any bullets or shrapnel. Bhutto aides who were there said she was shot in the head.
Videos and photos have also cast doubt on the official version, fuelling public speculation in a country with a long history of politicians coming to violent ends in unclear circumstances.
Musharraf said Bhutto, a two-time former premier, had been killed by the same “terrorists” who have been behind an unprecedented wave of violence in Pakistan in the past year that killed more than 800 people.
Militant groups have vowed to disrupt the vote, which the president said now had to be delayed given the unrest, especially in Bhutto’s home province of Sindh, where most of the 58 deaths in the post-assassination unrest were recorded.
“The postponement was unavoidable and the decision by the election commission is correct,” Musharraf said.
The government has consistently rejected calls for a UN probe into the killing and Musharraf’s main backer, the United States, was quick to say the world body had no need to get involved.
Using language that Musharraf did not, the White House said Scotland Yard would “lead” the inquiry. Pakistan has repeatedly said it could accept outside help but that an internationally-led probe was out of the question.
“Scotland Yard being in the lead of this investigation is appropriate and necessary and we don’t see a need for an investigation beyond that at this time,” US spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Musharraf, a close US ally in the “war on terror”, appealed for national unity, which he said was essential in fighting terrorism.
“We must unite and struggle against it with more vigour and energy. If we do not succeed, then, God forbid, Pakistan’s future is black,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bhutto’s party and others condemned the vote’s postponement from January 8 but grudgingly said they would still take part.
The parliamentary vote is seen as Pakistan’s crucial next step in the transition to civilian-led democratic rule under Musharraf, who stepped down from his other post as army chief just weeks ago.
Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the country’s largest, has alleged the delay is an attempt to give Musharraf’s allies time to rig the vote, but said it would contest the election nonetheless.
“We condemn the delay but we are taking part,” said Bhutto’s husband and the party’s de facto new leader, Asif Ali Zardari.
The other main opposition party, led by former premier Nawaz Sharif, said the postponement was “unfair” but that it would not boycott the polls.
With Musharraf under pressure to hold free and fair elections that will cap nearly a year of political turmoil, analysts said there would be doubts about the decision to delay.
“The credibility of the election commission is more in doubt now,” Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore University of Management Sciences, said before the Musharraf speech. “It is neither independent nor free.”
Senior officials had confirmed since Monday that the vote would be delayed, but the public announcement was held up by consultations with the parties – and the nation – in an uproar.
Every recent election in Pakistan, the world’s only nuclear-armed Islamic nation, has been marred by allegations of fraud.
Bhutto returned home from eight years of exile in October to contest the election, which will determine the make-up of parliament as well as that of assemblies in Pakistan’s four provinces.