President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan yesterday batted away charges that his regime was complicit in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but admitted he was dissatisfied with progress in the controversial investigation.
"No intelligence organisation of Pakistan is capable of indoctrinating a man to blow himself up," he told reporters in response to accusations against the Inter Services Intelligence agency. "Would I or the government gain from this?"
Instead Musharraf placed the blame on Islamist militants with al-Qaida links who are battling government forces in North-West Frontier Province.
Baitullah Masood, from Waziristan, and Maulana Fazlullah, of the Swat valley, were responsible for most of the 19 suicide attacks that have killed 400 people and injured 900 over the past three months, he said, and were also the main suspects in Bhutto's killing.
But Masood has denied any involvement in the attack and Musharraf is battling a perception that he is scapegoating the Islamists to avoid difficult questions. His officials have presented several different versions of how Bhutto died.
Musharraf said targeting Masood would involve a big military operation and, despite having wiretaps of his conversations, he was difficult to catch. "He shifts and moves every day and every night. It's not like you think."
He denied that al-Qaida had gained ground in Pakistan over the past year, contradicting most western intelligence estimates, and announced that security forces had arrested two suspects in the Punjabi cities of Mianwali and Sarghoda. Suicide belts were recovered in the operation, he said, but gave no further details.
Musharraf said he was "not fully satisfied" with the investigation, which saw valuable forensic evidence hosed away moments after the attack, and conceded that investigators should not have changed their story about the cause of death.
"One should not give a statement that's 100% final. That's the flaw that we suffer from," he said.
The British government is sending Scotland Yard detectives to help with the investigation. But they will not be allowed to interview the senior intelligence officials whom Bhutto accused of plotting against her, he said. "These are not realities, these are baseless accusations."
Pakistan faces elections on February 18, six weeks later than planned because of unrest after Bhutto's assassination.
But despite plunging popularity Musharraf was in jocular form, jesting with journalists and boasting of his achievements in bringing about a "democratic transition" in Pakistan.
After a 90-minute question-and-answer session on the television programme that provided the platform for the press conference, the presenter tried to end the show. But the president jovially beckoned journalists to ask more questions. "Go on, ask what you like," he said.
"I'm not a fraud and I'm not a liar," he said. "I speak the truth and unfortunately I've been accused ... of being too blunt, of annoying others."
Pakistan's nuclear weapons were in safe hands, he said. And he criticised western press coverage. "I don't believe most of what you write most of the time these days," he said, stabbing a finger towards the press corps.
But his face clouded over when asked if he had blood on his hands. "Frankly, I consider the question below my dignity to answer," he said. "I've been brought up in a very educated and civilised family which believes in values, principle and character. My family, by any imagination, is not one that believes in killing people, assassinations or intriguing. "
