New York, January 13: Benazir Bhutto's family did not want a post-mortem examination, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said, expressing his willingness to exhume the assassinated leader's body now.
"There's the cultural factor. Somehow, in our culture, a post-mortem of a woman is not done. When the body was at the hospital, Asif Ali Zardari (Bhutto's husband) himself said it could not be done; he didn't want the post-mortem done," Musharraf said in an interview to Newsweek.

Rejecting accusations that his government was complicit in the Benazir killing, he favoured exhumation of the body to clear the air about the cause of her death.

But, he said, Bhutto's family will not agree, "because they know it's a fact there is nothing wrong."

Reacting to Zardari's stand that he would allow an autopsy if there were a UN investigation, Musharraf said, "There cannot be a UN investigation. There are not two or three countries involved."

When asked if Zardari was playing a political game over Bhutto's death, Musharraf said, "Everybody is trying to gain political advantage; the entire opposition is trying to take political advantage."