Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was "hostile" and had a "confrontational" discussion with ex-premier Benazir Bhutto before her return to Pakistan from self-imposed exile in 2007, the slain leader's close friend Mark Siegel has said.
Siegel, who helped Bhutto put together her final book 'Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West', claimed that Musharraf had telephoned Bhutto when she was with him in the US to discuss her return to Pakistan.
He said Bhutto later told him about the conversation, saying Musharraf confronted her as he did not want her to return to Pakistan.
"It wasn't a very good conversation. He was very confrontational. He seemed to be very hostile. He didn't want her to return. She made it clear that she was returning and the preparations were underway for her return," Siegel told a TV news channel.
Soon after the 2002 general election, Musharraf had offered Bhutto a deal for dropping charges against her husband Asif Ali Zardari, releasing him from prison and giving him a ministry of his choice if she agreed to bid goodbye to politics for the next 10 years, Siegel claimed.
Bhutto was sitting with Siegel when Zardari telephoned her from prison and told her he had been offered the deal. "He (Zardari) said he won't accept the deal under any conditions and would rather spend the rest of his life in jail," Siegel said.
Bhutto had also sent Siegel an e-mail after her motorcade was the target of a suicide attack in Karachi hours after her return to Pakistan in October 2007 following eight years of self-imposed exile, asking what she should do and whom to hold accountable if something happened to her.
Siegel did not elaborate on the e-mail but said it asked him to hold Musharraf responsible in case anything happened to Bhutto.
The e-mail further said certain persons named in Bhutto's letter sent to Musharraf on October 16, 2007 via the UAE embassy should also be held responsible.
Bhutto's e-mail talked about threats to her life and the denial of security she had sought, Siegel said, adding he had approached the US government to directly ask Musharraf to provide security to the former premier.
Siegel said: "Even though I was stunned at her death, I knew I had to continue doing what she told me to... No matter how devastated I felt, I had to go forward and that's when I released (Bhutto's) e-mail to CNN."
Bhutto was killed in a gun-and-suicide attack shortly after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.
A report by a UN commission that probed Bhutto's killing has held Musharraf's regime responsible for not providing adequate security to her despite reports of several threats to her life. PTI
