Former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf, stripped of the privilege and impunity he enjoyed a few short years ago, has pleaded not guilty to charges of arranging the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

It’s the first time that a senior general of Pakistan’s military has faced criminal charges.  After the closed-door hearing in the military garrison town of Rawalpindi, paramilitary rangers rushed Musharraf back to his villa where he has remained under house arrest.

Benazir Bhutto had returned to Pakistan from exile in October 2007, and was assassinated within 2 months.  Musharraf’s government quickly blamed the Pakistani Taliban.

She had previously disclosed to a friend in Washington that if she were killed, the blame should fall on four named people: a former director of Pakistan’s main spy agency; a military intelligence chief; a rival politician; and Musharraf himself.  It is believed that the charges against Musharraf are at least partly based on that friend’s account.