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PESHAWAR, Pakistan: British detectives helping Pakistan investigate
the murder of Benazir Bhutto may quiz a teenager held over his
alleged involvement in the plot to kill her, a security official
said Tuesday.
The 15-year-old, named as Aitezaz Shah, was
arrested on Friday in the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan. He
allegedly told police he was part of a back-up squad tasked to
assassinate the two-time former premier.
A senior antiterrorism official said that a team
of British police from Scotland Yard, who were invited by President
Pervez Musharraf to help probe Bhutto’s death, is likely to
question Shah.
The News, an English-language daily, quoted
official sources as saying that the Britons were likely to quiz Shah
“to find out if he really had links with the attack or the group
that was involved in the high-profile murder.”
British officials were not immediately available
for comment. The Scotland Yard team is currently shuttling back and
forth between Islamabad and London taking evidence for examination.
Officials said police also arrested the
teenager’s father from the southern port city of Karachi and his
uncle from a northwestern town.
Police in Karachi also arrested a close relative
of Baitullah Mehsud, a tribal warlord accused by the government of
having links to al-Qaeda and of masterminding the Bhutto attack, the
security official said.
They detained Shah’s alleged “handler” at
the weekend and recovered a suicide jacket and bomb-making material
from the man’s house, officials added.
Shah is alleged to confess to being part of a
three-man team that was assigned by Mehsud’s network to attack
Bhutto if an initial two-man suicide squad had failed to kill her at
a political rally on December 27.
Meanwhile, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
on Tuesday began meetings in France, the second leg of a European
tour aimed at shoring up his battered image after months of turmoil
in the nuclear-armed state.
-- AFP
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