Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said that he has answered questions and provided evidence to the Scotland Yard’s investigating team. He said that the PPP would give more evidence and, as of yet, the team had not indicated any conclusion to their findings. “I, along with other party leaders, met the Scotland Yard team in Karachi and I gave them some evidence,” Zardari told reporters at the Bhutto family home in Karachi, AFP adds.He said that the British team’s mandate was limited and the demand for an inquiry into Benazir Bhutto’s assassination through a United Nations tribunal had not been withdrawn. Zardari also said he would now directly approach the UN for a probe into her killing after the government rejected his request to get the world body involved. “The government rejected our appeal for a UN probe, so the PPP will directly approach the UN,” he said. He added that he had spoken to former UN secretary general Kofi Annan on the matter.
Four names: Zardari said that the four people identified by Benazir in her October 16, 2007 letter to President Pervez Musharraf would be disclosed to the United Nations inquiry tribunal that had been formally requested by the party. “They were not three, but four [names],” Zardari said. “The regime says that Al Qaeda is involved in the assassination and Al Qaeda is a transnational outfit, hence the United Nations may constitute an inquiry tribunal,” Zardari said when a reporter mentioned that such an United Nations inquiry is sought when a foreign country is involved.
Not unpopular: Zardari brushed aside rumours that Benazir was assassinated because of her support for US policies. He also rebuffed a statement made by the president that Benazir was unpopular with the army. “The son of martial law dictator Ziaul Haq didn’t win from Rawalpindi, which is the heart of martial law, but Zamarrud Khan of the People’s Party,” he said. “I appeal to the workers and supporters of the PPP and Benazir to go to polling stations defying the threats of the enemies of Pakistan and vote for the PPP to take revenge for her,” he urged.
Zardari said international organisations had findings that acknowledged pre-poll rigging. Bilawal House was the property of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and he and his sisters would decide if it would be turned into a Benazir Bhutto Memorial Museum or not, he added. He said he had earlier planned to set up Bilawal House as the provincial headquarters of the Punjab, NWFP and Balochistan. A widow of a slain comrade had phoned him and said the people of the Punjab wanted him (Zardari) to stay in Lahore.
He said that Musharraf must prove his vow that Pakistan came first, by holding elections on February 18, as the PPP would counter its rivals by adopting democratic norms. He reiterated that he had reached Pakistan six hours after BenazirÂ’s death.