Musharraf promises to comply with British police

British detectives investigating the assassination of Benazir Bhutto will not be hindered by government restrictions, President Pervez Musharraf promised today.

The move appeared to be a softening of the government’s position on the probe. Last week Mr Musharraf said the Scotland Yard squad would not be allowed to go on a “wild goose chase” into claims the government was behind Ms Bhutto’s killing.

After the president met the officers a government spokesman said: “He assured (the investigators) of his full support and said that they were totally free to conduct their probe, and no one will interfere in their affairs.”

The government blamed the attack on Islamic militants and initially said Ms Bhutto was killed when the force of the blast slammed her head into a lever on the sunroof of her car. The opposition blamed elements of the ruling party and said she was killed by gunfire.

Ms Bhutto’s death plunged Pakistan even deeper into political crisis at a time when it is battling militants linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Amid growing calls for an international probe into her death, Mr Musharraf invited the six-Scotland Yard anti-terror division to assist local investigators.

When they arrived last week, the British experts visited the site of the attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi to take photographs and record video and speak with local security officers. They have made no comment since.

“The forensic experts and analysts from Scotland Yard are independently and freely conducting their investigation. They are helping Pakistan to determine the motives behind the attack and to help us know the exact cause of Benazir Bhutto’s death,” the government spokesman said.

“Whenever the team from Scotland Yard reaches any conclusion, we will share it with the people.”

The team met Mr Musharraf on the same day Ms Bhutto’s son Bilawal repeated a call by his Pakistan People’s Party for the formation of a UN committee with a broad mandate to investigate Bhutto’s assassination.

“We do not believe that an investigation under the authority of the Pakistani government has the necessary transparency,” he told a news conference in Britain.

“Already so much forensic evidence has been destroyed.”

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, head of another opposition party and a fierce critic of President Musharraf, called on the president to resign and reinstate the judges he dismissed during a six-week state of emergency that ended last month. He also called for a national unity government to be formed to run the elections.

“If he stays in power then nobody can save the country from complete destruction,” he said. “They are planning massive rigging in polls and I want to make it clear that this would be disastrous for Pakistan.”

Meanwhile today Pakistani intelligence agents arrested a suspected al-Qaida-linked militant and six of his associates in connection with an attack on an air force bus in November that killed eight people and wounded about 40 others.

The suspect, identified as Ahsanul Haq, a retired army major, was caught in the eastern city of Lahore last month following the attack in Sargodha.