(AP) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf blamed Benazir Bhutto for her own death, saying in an interview broadcast Sunday she should not have poked her head out of her vehicle's sunroof while leaving the rally where she was assassinated.
Bhutto, a former Pakistani prime minister and rival of Musharraf, died Dec. 27 in a suicide bombing and shooting in the city of Rawalpindi.
Musharraf said his government had provided Bhutto with enough protection and it was her own negligence that led to her death. She should have left the rally quickly instead of lingering to wave to supporters, and was lucky to have made it into the vehicle alive, Musharraf said in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" program.
"I mean, God was kind - she went into the car in spite of the fact that she was waving and all that. She did go into the car. Now - now is the point. Why did she stand outside the car?" he said.
"For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers," he added.
On Saturday, Bhutto's husband accused members of Pakistan's government of involvement in his wife's killing and demanded a U.N. investigation. Opposition activists have denounced the government's initial assessment that an Islamic militant was behind the attack and that Bhutto died not from gunshot wounds but from the force of the blast.
Musharraf has acknowledged that investigators may have drawn conclusions too quickly and mishandled evidence, including hosing down the site hours after the attack. But he has insisted his government is capable of conducting its own probe with help from British forensic experts.
He denied in Sunday's interview that he had anything to do with Bhutto's death.
"This is unfortunately a very baseless allegation. Nobody has a right to blame anyone for killing anyone unless they have the proof," he said.