Former Pakistani president faces arrest in Bhutto assassination

ISLAMABAD -- Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf will be arrested in connection with the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto if he returns to the country, a government prosecutor said Saturday.

There is no need for any "fresh arrest warrants" for him as a court has already issued orders for his arrest, prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali told reporters.

Hours earlier, Musharraf told a Pakistani news channel that he would come back later this month to contest the next parliamentary elections, which could be held later this year.

Musharraf has been living in London and Dubai since 2008 when the government, led by Bhutto's party, forced him to resign.

Bhutto was killed in 2007 in a gun and suicide bomb attack near the capital, Islamabad, after returning home to contest elections. Musharraf, at the time, had blamed the Pakistani Taliban for her murder, but the prosecution alleges he was part of the plot.

Musharraf now heads his own faction of the All Pakistan Muslim League, a small political party that does not have any major base in the country. Some of his former supporters have quit his party.

His spokesman, Fawad Chaudhry, asserted that the arrest warrant for Musharraf had no legal value.

"We have challenged this arrest warrant in a court," he said, adding that Musharraf would announce a final date for returning home this week, but "he will come back soon to lead the nation."