Pakistan asks Interpol to issue Musharraf arrest warrant

"We have sent a request to the Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) for the arrest of Pervez Musharraf," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said in the capital Islamabad on Sunday.

The country’s Federal Investigation Agency, which is probing the assassination of Bhutto in a firearm and bomb attack in the northern city of Rawalpindi in December 2007, is seeking to arrest Musharraf over the government’s accusation that he failed to take proper security measures to protect the former prime minister.

Musharraf took power in a 1999 coup. He has been living in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai since resigning in 2008 after his political allies lost the general elections that year and the new coalition government led by Bhutto’s widower, President Asif Ali Zardari, threatened to impeach him.

The government also accuses the former president of threatening Bhutto over the telephone when she was in Washington before returning to Pakistan.

After the assassination, Musharraf’s government blamed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of militants, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), for the killing. Mehsud denied any involvement.

Pakistani courts have also issued arrest warrants for Musharraf in connection with the 2006 death of Akbar Bugti, a prominent politician, in Balochistan Province in the southwest.