Two Confess To Arming Bhutto Assassin

By Cernig

CNN reports that Pakistani police are claiming a breakthrough in the Bhutto assassination trail.

Two suspects arrested last week confessed to a Pakistani judge Wednesday that they helped arm the suicide bomber blamed for assassinating Benazir Bhutto, an Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN.

The two men -- identified as Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat -- were part of a five-man team behind the former prime minister's assassination, including the suicide bomber, a senior police investigator told CNN.

Both were at the Rawalpindi park where Bhutto was assassinated on December 27 as she left a political campaign rally, said investigator Chaudhry Abdul Majeed.

The other two suspects -- one of them named Karamullah -- are still at large, he said.

The two suspects told the judge in Wednesday's court appearance that they provided the suicide bomber with a house, transportation, a pistol, and the suicide jacket he allegedly used in the attack that killed the opposition leader and nearly two dozen others, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.

Hmmmm. I'd be happier about the provenance of these confessions if Pakistan didn't have such a poor record on torturing detainees.

I'd also be far happier if these confessions weren't simply parroting Pakistani government propaganda.

Mr Gul allegedly told police he had wanted to "avenge" the killing of his close friend during the military raid on the Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, in July 2007.

"Their motive for attacking Bhutto was that she was coming to Pakistan at the behest of a foreign power," Mr Abdul Majid said.

Bhutto didn't order the assault on the Red Mosque - Musharraf did. And it was Musharraf's government who first and loudest protested Bhutto's return at US behest, not the Taliban.