London, Jan 10: Pakistan's powerful intelligence service, the ISI, is the "number one accused" in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a senior Britain-based leader of her party has said.

"ISI is number one accused for the murder of Ms Bhutto, Pakistan's great leader," Amanullah Khan, a leader of the Pakistan People's Party, said here last night. "Her assassination is calculated. Her killing is a fascist act and ISI and CIA should shoulder responsibility for her assassination," Khan said at a condolence meeting organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Third-World Solidarity at the Boothroyd Room of House of Commons.

He said Bhutto was longing to go back to Pakistan in her effort to restore democracy there but was "deceived and stabbed in the back by ISI." Khalid Mahmood, a Labour MP, said Bhutto knew the threat to her life but the West cajoled and forced her to return to Pakistan." Lord Nazir Ahmad described Bhutto as a "rare woman who lived and fought for democracy and died for democracy."

He claimed President Pervez Musharraf "is responsible for creating terrorism, extremism and fundamentalism in Pakistan and sooner we get rid of him is better for the country." Bhutto's friend at Oxford and journalist Victoria Schofield described the PPP leader as not only "a charismatic politician, but a devoted mother and wife."