Bhutto investigators question Musharraf

PAKISTAN: A UN Commission investigating the assassination of Pakistan's ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has questioned former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, the United Nations said Wednesday.

The team arrived in Pakistan in July to investigate the circumstances surrounding the 2007 attack that left the two-time prime minister dead and met "dozens" of individuals.

"The Commission of Inquiry had a frank, open and cordial conversation with former president Musharraf, having been able to pose to him many queries on issues central to its mandate," a statement from the world body said.

Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, was killed on December 27, 2007 in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad.

Musharraf, who was in power at the time of Bhutto's death, was replaced last year as Pakistan's president by Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, whose party called for a UN inquiry to probe inconsistencies surrounding her killing. Bhutto's supporters were angered by conflicting accounts of how she died and who was responsible, although the UN team has said its mandate is limited to fact-finding.London's Scotland Yard also conducted an inquiry into the assassination and ruled that Bhutto died from the force of a suicide bomb and not gunfire.ISLAMABAD, AFP