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Musharraf must have known where Osama bin Laden was hiding: MP Chris Alexander

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf surely knew that Osama bin Laden was hiding in a compound a short walk from a Pakistani military academy, says Conservative MP Chris Alexander, who previously served as Canada’s first resident ambassador in Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban.

“I can’t prove Musharraf’ knowledge, but everything I know about Pakistan’s system would tell me that he as chief of the army staff and he as president would have known,” Alexander said during a speech today at the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa. 

“And it’s really a bravura performance to be able to dissimulate, lie, on that level to your key ally and to an administration that considered him a principle ally in the war on terror. It’s up there in the annals of betrayal,” he added referring Musharraf’s relationship with the George W. Bush administration in Washington.

Bin Laden was assassinated in a raid by U.S. special forces this May.

In his speech, Alexander explicitly accused the Pakistani military of supporting insurgents in Afghanistan. He’s right, of course. It’s nice to hear such candor from a government MP.

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