Pakistan arrests 2 in Bhutto slaying

Pakistani officials announced Thursday that two more arrests had been made in connection with the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

The arrests were the first apparent break in the case since last month, when police detained two suspects, including a teenage boy who told authorities he had been designated a backup suicide bomber in a continuing effort to assassinate the former prime minister.

Bhutto was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack Dec. 27 as she left a campaign rally in the city of Rawalpindi. The arrests announced Thursday were made there, the seat of the Pakistani military.

The authorities’ announcement coincided with the return here of three investigators from Scotland Yard, who are to disclose their findings in coming days.

President Pervez Musharraf allowed the investigators to participate in the probe after critics at home and abroad said Pakistani authorities could not be trusted to carry out a full and impartial investigation of the assassination.

On Thursday, Bhutto’s party held solemn ceremonies to mark the 40th day since her death, a date that actually fell earlier this week. More than 10,000 people gathered in Bhutto’s ancestral village in the southeastern province of Sindh for prayers at the mausoleum where she was buried beside her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was executed by a military dictator in 1979.

Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who took over leadership of her Pakistan People’s Party in accordance with her wishes, delivered an emotional address promising to carry on his slain wife’s legacy.

“If I am martyred before completing the mission of Benazir Bhutto, then I should also be buried here,” he said.

Zardari is mistrusted by Pakistanis because of corruption charges stemming from Bhutto’s two terms in office in the 1990s. It is not known whether he will be the party’s candidate for prime minister if it performs strongly enough in Feb. 18 elections to seek the post.

The latest arrests of suspects in the Bhutto case were announced by Javed Iqbal Cheema, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. He said the pair were scheduled to appear in a special anti-terrorism court as early as today, but he declined to detail their alleged roles.

“These are important arrests,” he told reporters.

Pakistani authorities have blamed militant Islamic leader Baitullah Mahsud for orchestrating Bhutto’s assassination, a finding echoed by the CIA.

Mahsud, who has denied involvement in the killing, announced Wednesday that his supporters had agreed to a cease-fire with government forces in tribal areas where fighting has raged in recent weeks.

Senior officials in Bhutto’s party say they believe elements within the government were complicit in her killing. Zardari has demanded a United Nations investigation, but the government has steadfastly refused.

Bhutto’s party said that with the end of the formal mourning period, its candidates would resume large-scale rallies between now and the vote for parliament, despite security fears.

Musharraf’s popularity has plummeted since March, when he first attempted to fire independent-minded Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.

In November, as the Supreme Court appeared poised to invalidate his reelection as president, Musharraf declared a state of emergency and sacked the chief justice, along with dozens of other top jurists.

The state of emergency was lifted in mid-December, but not all liberties were restored. Many opposition party members say they fear rearrest, and independent broadcast outlets, which were barred from transmitting in the weeks that followed the declaration of emergency, have been operating under restrictions that bar criticism of the president.

On Thursday, a private television channel said it was temporarily knocked off the air after it broadcast a commentary Wednesday night by a Musharraf critic. The channel, Aaj TV, was allowed to resume broadcasting hours later.

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laura.king@latimes.com