RAWALPINDI – Pakistan will ask Interpol to circulate a global arrest warrant for former president Pervez Musharraf over the murder of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
A Pakistani court last week gave prosecutors until April 2 to serve a warrant granted in February on Musharraf, who was president when Bhutto was killed in December 2007 in a gun and suicide bomb attack in Rawalpindi.
Musharraf, who lives in self-imposed exile in London, is accused of failing to provide her with adequate security.
“We presented three letters in the court which have been sent to the British government for the execution of the warrants,” prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told.
“We have not yet received any report from the British home department and now we will write to Interpol to help execute the warrants,” Ali said.
Bhutto was killed after addressing an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.
Musharraf is alleged to have been part of a “broad conspiracy” to have his political rival killed before elections, though the exact nature of the charges against him is not clear.
Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister, returned from exile two months before she was assassinated. Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, led her Pakistan People’s Party to election victory in 2008 and is now president.
At the time of Bhutto’s death, Musharraf’s government blamed the assassination on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement and was subsequently killed in a US drone attack.
