ISLAMABAD, 4 January 2007 — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday rejected suggestions the government had a hand in the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. He, however, admitted flaws in the investigation of her murder.

For the first time since Benazir was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack, he acknowledged reports that the crime scene had been quickly hosed down, possibly destroying evidence, after her murder.

He conceded he was “not fully satisfied” with the probe so far. “I am sure that they did not do it with an intention of hiding some secrets or that the intelligence agencies instructed them to hide secrets,” Musharraf told reporters at the presidential palace.

“It is just inefficiency on the part of these people who think things have to be cleared and the road has to be cleared and traffic has to go through,” he said.

The president said authorities were not responsible for a security lapse that led to the killing. “In the last three months, there have been 19 suicide bombings, most of them against the military, against the intelligence,” he said. “If the same military and same intelligence is using the same people who are attacking them, it’s a joke.”

Musharraf added: “No intelligence organization in Pakistan, I think, is capable of indoctrinating a man to blow himself up.” He said Benazir had ignored warnings about the danger of holding a rally at the Rawalpindi park. “Yes, indeed, she was informed of the threat. We knew, the intelligence agencies knew, there was a threat and we told her not to go and stopped her from going,” he said referring to an incident in November when authorities put Benazir under house arrest briefly to stop her attending a rally at the park.

“This time again, she decided to go and she went... She went on her own volition, ignoring the threat,” he said.

Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has ridiculed the government account of her death, which said that the shooter had missed her and that she had died fracturing her skull by smashing her head against her vehicle’s sunroof lever.

The party demanded a UN investigation, something government officials have ruled out, but Musharraf announced Wednesday, in his first major address to the nation since Benazir’s death, that a Scotland Yard team was on its way to Pakistan.

In London, a Scotland Yard spokesman said a team of experts will be ready to leave for Pakistan in 24 hours. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Wednesday that London had agreed to send “technical experts” following the request from Musharraf.

Yesterday, opposition parties demanded better security as the nation prepared for a lengthy election campaign for the Feb. 18 poll.

The country’s main political parties confirmed they would resume the race to restore democracy but said the government must ensure candidates are protected from the dangers posed by anyone determined to disrupt the poll.

“We would like the government to provide foolproof security to Sharif, including a bulletproof vehicle,” said Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the party of two-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. “We will continue our election campaign but we are revising the party chief’s program of public engagements in view of the current security situation,” he added.

Sherry Rehman, spokeswoman for the PPP, said her widowed husband and de facto new leader, Asif Ali Zardari, would lead the campaign after the party’s mourning period ended early next month.

— Additional input from agencies