(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-28 20:07

BEIRUT -- Lebanese leaders on Friday strongly condemned the assassination of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

In a cable of condolences to Bhutto's family and her political party on Friday, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri described Bhutto's killing as a "heinous crime."

Berri said he was "saddened at the martyrdom of the leader of the Pakistan People's Party, whose life was taken by the hands of terrorism and organized crime."

He strongly condemned the "heinous crime," and hoped that Pakistani democracy and stability would prevail.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora on Thursday also strongly denounced "this terrorist act because of what we have suffered and still endure here in Lebanon since the martyrdom of our beloved and leaders in the same cowardly way."

He expressed in a statement his "denouncement, shock and grief over this terrorist crime which targeted one of the leaders of Pakistan and the Islamic world."

"I extend my cabinet's condolences to the government and friendly people of Pakistan," he added.

Pakistani opposition leader and former premier Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a gun and bomb attack as she was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi, some 30 km south of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.