ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Pakistan Rangers were ordered to shoot rioters as violence continued Saturday after the funeral of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Burned cars marked the empty streets of Bhutto's home city of Larkana after rioting following her funeral Friday, CNN reported.

At least 31 people have died since Bhutto's assassination in Rawalpindi Thursday. Paramilitary forces were told to "shoot on sight" those causing civil disturbances, the BBC said.

Thousands of mourners gathered publicly Saturday in Lahore and Rawalpindi, where marchers clashed with police who fired back with tear gas.

Central Karachi was largely quiet as residents observed the mourning period, which ends Sunday, and obeyed government warnings to remain at home, Pakistan Dawn reported.

Meanwhile, al-Qaida leader Baitullah Mehsud has denied ordering Bhutto's death. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's office said intelligence agents intercepted a telephone call indicating Mehsud was involved in the attack, Dawn reported.

Former Greek official jumps from building

ATHENS, Greece, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- A former high-ranking Greek official was in critical condition after jumping from his fourth-floor apartment amid allegations he was being blackmailed.

Christos Zachopoulos, 54, former general secretary in the culture ministry, tried to kill himself Thursday in Athens, the English edition of Kathimerini reported Saturday.

Friday, prosecutors reviewed a DVD allegedly used to blackmail Zachopoulos. The sexual content of the DVD appeared to support claims by Zachopoulos' friends that he was allegedly being blackmailed by Evi Tsekou, 35, a former colleague who was arrested Friday on charges of blackmail, Kathimerini reported. Tsekou has denied having an affair with Zachopoulos or blackmailing him.

Meanwhile, the government has ordered an investigation into the handling of the culture ministry's finances during Zachopoulos' tenure.

Aussie Taliban fighter David Hicks freed

ADELAIDE, Australia, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Confessed Australian terrorism supporter David Hicks has been released from prison near his home town of Adelaide, South Australia.

Hicks, who spent more than five years in the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after being captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, was driven to an undisclosed destination on leaving Yatala prison.

The 32-year-old Hicks said he was not strong enough to appear before the media.

However, in a statement read to reporters by his lawyer David McLeod, he said he intended to honor an agreement not to talk to the media before the end of March 2008, which was part of the deal on his release from Guantanamo.

Hicks also expressed "the huge debt of gratitude that I owe the Australian public for getting me home" in his statement.

An interim control order required Hicks to report to police three times a week and comply with a curfew.

Hicks was transferred to Adelaide's Yatala prison nine months ago to serve the remainder of the sentence imposed on him by a Guantanamo military court for providing material support for terrorism.

Kenyan voters oust president

NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Challenger Raila Odinga was running almost 20 points ahead of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki in preliminary election results released Friday.

Odinga had 57 percent of the vote to 39 percent for Kibaki, The New York Times reported. About half the vote had been counted.

Voters also ousted many members of Kibaki's cabinet from their seats in parliament. Odinga won in the parliamentary district he has represented for 15 years. In Kenya, the president must also be a member of parliament.

"This vote is more anti-Kibaki than pro-opposition," Chweya Ludeki, a political scientist at the University of Nairobi, told the Times. "The president was seen as doing a bad job in terms of ethnic balance."

Odinga, leader of the Orange Democratic Movement, is a member of the Luo tribe, and voters expect him to be fairer than Kibaki, the newspaper said. Kibaki is a Kikuyu and thus a member of the tribe that has dominated Kenya since it won independence.

The son of a successful businessman, Odinga ran as a populist. His father, despite his wealth, was a socialist who sent Odina to East Germany for his education.