Pakistan rejects minister’s bounty

Pakistan yesterday distanced itself from a cabinet minister’s bounty for killing the maker of anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims as protests against the movie continued from Turkey to Hong Kong.

A spokesman for Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf rejected the $100,000 (€75,000) bounty promised by railways minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, who on Saturday offered a “prize” for killing the filmmaker and invited the Taliban and al-Qaeda to take part in the “noble deed”.

“This is not government policy. We completely dissociate (ourselves) from this,” the spokesman told AFP.