Hillary Clinton wants international probe into Benazir’s assassination
Islamabad, Dec 29: US democratic presidential hopeful, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, has said that the US should call for an independent investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
"I don’t think the Pakistani government at this time under Musharraf has any credibility at all, " she told CNN in an interview.
Hillary suggested that an investigation along the lines of the ongoing international inquiry into the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
President Pervez Musharraf and his supporters in the Bush Administration were coming under heavy pressure, inside and outside Pakistan, for an independent investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
Meanwhile, US State Department officials have said that they had no plans for the moment to join the investigation.
The New York Times quoted a senior Bush Administration official as saying that, "There’s a growing sense that we’re going to have to work on the investigation in some way, that it can’t just be a Pakistani investigation. "
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, he said that the Bush Administration officials were concerned that "there’s so much distrust" of the Musharraf regime among Pakistanis that outside nations may have to join the investigation to give the findings any credibility.
A second US official said the idea of an independent international investigation had been proposed by "a number of people, and is certainly something that hasn’t been ruled out. "
The distrust of Pakistan’s Government among Bhutto’s supporters runs strong and they may not readily accept the government’s effort to place responsibility for the assassination on al Qaeda-linked militants. (ANI)