KARACHI: A report by the United Nations and a Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT), probing former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s murder, says former President Gen (Retd) Pervez Musharraf was aware of the Benazir assassination plot and personally ordered the destruction of evidence, Mark Siegel alleged in a New York Daily News article on Thursday.

Siegel was an adviser and friend of late Benazir Bhutto, and was also a collaborator on her book “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West,” which completed days before her murder.

Siegel claims he was with the former prime minister on September 25, 2007, when she had received a call from Musharraf “threatening her with dire consequences if she returned to Pakistan.”

"She was visibly shaken when she hung up the phone," writes Siegel.

Soon after her arrival to Pakistan, and following the first failed assassination attempt on her life, Siegel claims she wrote an email to him saying “if anything happened to her, she would hold Musharraf responsible.”

The JIT report concludes that Musharraf, working with two police officers who reported back to him, knew of the plotting of the assassination, was aware of the timing and personally ordered the destruction of evidence, writes Siegel.

He adds: “Bhutto had believed that Musharraf was complicit in the attempt to take her life in Karachi by not providing her enough security. In fact, his involvement in the Karachi and Rawalpindi attacks was much more direct and insidious.”