Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had expressed doubts about a claim by the regime of his former boss Pervez Musharraf that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by the Pakistani Taliban, a UN investigator has said.
Kayani indicated he had wondered whether slain Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud had organised assassination, as was claimed by an Interior Ministry spokesman at a news conference a day after Bhutto’s death on December 27, 2007. Former President Musharraf’s Government based its claim on an intercept of a conversation between Mehsud and another man that was provided by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Kayani said the Musharraf Government’s Press conference had been “premature”. He said, “It should not have been done.” One cannot conclude culpability solely on a phone intercept, Kayani has been quoted as saying by Chilean diplomat Heraldo Munoz, who headed a UN panel that investigated Bhutto’s assassination. Kayani also considered the performance of the Rawalpindi police after the assassination to have been “amateur”, the diplomat writes in his new book “Getting Away With Murder”, excerpts from which were released on Monday.