'There is no complicity' in Ms Bhutto's killing, he said. 'Would I or the government be the maximum gainer from doing this? Or would there be someone else who would gain more?'

He said that in the past three months there had been 19 suicide bombings masterminded by militant leaders Baitullah Mehsud and Maulana Fazlullah.

Most of the attacks were against military and intelligence targets, he said, calling it a 'joke' to suggest that the military and intelligence agencies would be using their attackers for their own ends.

He also defended his police force, saying that Ms Bhutto had defied the government's warnings when she decided to go ahead with the rally in Rawalpindi, where she was killed on Dec 27.

He added that she had broken standard security rules by standing in the open top of her vehicle as the crowd swarmed around her.

The Pakistani leader also said that the government had provided adequate security on the day she was killed.

Ms Bhutto had been accompanied at all times by a police superintendent of her own choosing, he said. Four police vehicles with 30 policemen had flanked her, with 1,000 more policemen at the rally.

He acknowledged that the government had made mistakes when it issued conflicting accounts of how she died and hosed down the site of the attack too soon. But these were errors, he said, not an attempt at a cover-up.

He also dismissed opposition charges that he was delaying parliamentary polls by six weeks to give his people time to rig them. He said that he wanted elections as soon as possible, to create a government that could unite Pakistan and help fight terrorism.

Meanwhile, a team of investigators from Scotland Yard arrived in Pakistan yesterday to help with the investigation into Ms Bhutto's death.

Mr Musharraf said he had invited them to reassure people that the government was not involved in the killing.

Before her death, Ms Bhutto had accused elements in the ruling party of plotting to kill her.

ASSOCIATED PRESS