Pakistan arrests 2 in Bhutto slaying
The arrests, the first apparent break in the case since last month, bring to four the number of suspects who have been detained. Bhutto's supporters mark the 40th day since her death.
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — Pakistani officials announced today 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 Rawalpindi. The arrests announced today were made in the city, which is the seat of the Pakistani military.
The authorities' announcement coincided with the return of a three-member team of investigators from Scotland Yard, who are to disclose their findings in coming days.
President Pervez Musharraf allowed the outside 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 Bhutto's killings.
Bhutto's party, which held solemn ceremonies today to mark the 40th day since her death, remained skeptical that the truth about her assassination would come to light.
More than 10,000 people gathered in Bhutto's ancestral village in southern Sindh province 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 widely mistrusted by Pakistanis because of corruption charges stemming from Bhutto's two terms in office in the 1990s. It is not yet 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 Friday, but he declined to detail their alleged roles.
"These are important arrests," he told reporters.
