Musharraf to be charged over Bhutto murder

Prosecutors at a Pakistani court will next week charge former military ruler Pervez Musharraf with criminal conspiracy and the murder of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, lawyers said yesterday.
Musharraf, once the most powerful man in the nuclear-armed country, has been under house arrest since April. He appeared before the anti-terrorism court in person yesterday.
Indicting a former army chief would be an unprecedented move in a country ruled for more than half of its life by the military.
It would be seen by many as a far more serious challenge to the armed forces' power than his house arrest was.
Bhutto, twice elected prime minister of Pakistan, was assassinated in a gun and bomb attack in December 2007 after campaigning in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Musharraf's lawyer Ahmed Raza Kasuri told AFP the retired general would plead not guilty and the court had ordered that his bank accounts and assets be unfrozen.
The main prosecutor in the case, Chaudhry Zulfiqar, was shot dead in Islamabad on May 3.
There was no public claim of responsibility for Bhutto's murder.