Media reports in Pakistan have claimed that the plot behind the 2007 assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto was hatched at the home of a Pakistani army brigadier. But the claim was dismissed as totally concocted by Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

The Express Tribune’ newspaper quoting unnamed sources reported today that a fresh probe has uncovered the role of nine men, including the brigadier in whose residence the plot was hatched. The paper said the findings of the investigation, conducted under the

Interior Ministry’s supervision, were deliberately kept under wraps, even from the ruling PPP’s top leaders. It said, the probe’s findings are in the possession of Interior Minister Malik and had been seen only by President Asif Ali Zardari in its entirety.

Dismissing the report, Malik told reporters in Karachi that all the reports he had received so far on the assassination did not show the involvement of a brigadier. He said the conspiracy to assassinate Bhutto was hatched in militant hideouts and not in the home of any brigadier.

The paper said, according to the enquiry report, five of the nine conspirators are alive while the other four, including those sent to kill Bhutto, are dead.