Islamabad: Pakistani authorities have dismissed as ridiculous an email that slain former premier Benazir Bhutto had sent to her US-based spokesman, which said that President Pervez Musharraf would be responsible if anything happened to her.

"It's a ridiculous statement, which doesn't deserve a comment," said the president's spokesman Maj Gen (retired) Rashid Qureshi. "I don't want to dignify it by offering any comment on it," Qureshi was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari, who was yesterday named co-chairman of her Pakistan People's Party, has said that the email was "self-explanatory" and should be treated as Bhutto's "dying declaration".

Media reports have said that Bhutto wrote in the email that if anything happened to her, "I would hold (President Pervez) Musharraf responsible".
CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer received the email on October 26 from Mark Siegel, Bhutto's Washington-based spokesman, eight days after she narrowly escaped an attempt on her life in Karachi on October 19.

In the email, Bhutto wrote: "I have been made to feel insecure by his (Musharraf's) minions". It said that specific improvements had not been made to her security arrangements, and that the president was responsible.

Zardari has said the PPP will approach the UN to conduct a probe into Bhutto's killing on the lines of the world body's investigation into the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Source : PTI