brilTek
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- May 19, 2009
- Messages
- 381
- Reaction score
- 0
UN commission probes Bhutto death in Pakistan
Thursday, July 16, 2009
ISLAMABAD: The UN commission set up to investigate the assassination of Pakistani former prime minister Benazir Bhutto opened its first inquiries in Islamabad on Thursday and held talks with her widower.
Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, was killed in late December 2007 in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad.
The government called for a UN inquiry after Bhutto's party won a general election in February 2008 with her supporters angered by conflicting accounts of how she died and who was responsible.
They cast doubt on a Pakistani probe into her death, criticised authorities for hosing down the scene of the attack within minutes -- allegedly destroying evidence -- and questioning whether she was killed by a gunshot or the blast.
The three-member UN panel was given six months from July 1 to investigate and is due to submit a report by end-December, but the world body stressed Thursday that any criminal investigation would be up to Pakistan.
Headed by the Chilean ambassador to the United Nations, Heraldo Munoz, it includes an Indonesian ex-attorney general and an Irish former police official.
The panel met Bhutto's widower -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari -- and other senior officials on Thursday, the presidency said.
"We approached the UN because firstly we wanted transparent and above board investigations so there are no accusations of bias," presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar quoted Zardari as telling the UN team.
"We also wanted to unearth any conspiracy to balkanize Pakistan and let the world know how a democratic leader heroically laid down her life.
"We have carried out our own investigations and the findings will be made available to the UN investigators," Babar also quoted Zardari as saying.
"The staff, working under direction of the commissioners, will gather information, collate relevant material and conduct interviews," said a UN statement released on Thursday. "The mandate does not extend to the undertaking of a criminal investigation, which remains the responsibility of the Pakistani authorities," it said.
Bhutto, the first of whose two stints as prime minister began in 1988, wrote in her autobiography of warnings that four suicide squads -- including one sent by Mehsud and another by a son of Osama bin Laden -- were after her.
She also repeatedly accused a cabal of senior Pakistani intelligence and government officials of plotting to kill her, notably in an attack that killed 139 people in Karachi on October 18, 2007 when she returned from exile.
Then president Pervez Musharraf and the US Central Intelligence Agency blamed Baitullah Mehsud, an Al-Qaeda-linked warlord based in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan, for masterminding the killing.
The commission will submit a report to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by end-December. The report will be shared with the Pakistani government and the UN Security Council.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
ISLAMABAD: The UN commission set up to investigate the assassination of Pakistani former prime minister Benazir Bhutto opened its first inquiries in Islamabad on Thursday and held talks with her widower.
Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, was killed in late December 2007 in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad.
The government called for a UN inquiry after Bhutto's party won a general election in February 2008 with her supporters angered by conflicting accounts of how she died and who was responsible.
They cast doubt on a Pakistani probe into her death, criticised authorities for hosing down the scene of the attack within minutes -- allegedly destroying evidence -- and questioning whether she was killed by a gunshot or the blast.
The three-member UN panel was given six months from July 1 to investigate and is due to submit a report by end-December, but the world body stressed Thursday that any criminal investigation would be up to Pakistan.
Headed by the Chilean ambassador to the United Nations, Heraldo Munoz, it includes an Indonesian ex-attorney general and an Irish former police official.
The panel met Bhutto's widower -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari -- and other senior officials on Thursday, the presidency said.
"We approached the UN because firstly we wanted transparent and above board investigations so there are no accusations of bias," presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar quoted Zardari as telling the UN team.
"We also wanted to unearth any conspiracy to balkanize Pakistan and let the world know how a democratic leader heroically laid down her life.
"We have carried out our own investigations and the findings will be made available to the UN investigators," Babar also quoted Zardari as saying.
"The staff, working under direction of the commissioners, will gather information, collate relevant material and conduct interviews," said a UN statement released on Thursday. "The mandate does not extend to the undertaking of a criminal investigation, which remains the responsibility of the Pakistani authorities," it said.
Bhutto, the first of whose two stints as prime minister began in 1988, wrote in her autobiography of warnings that four suicide squads -- including one sent by Mehsud and another by a son of Osama bin Laden -- were after her.
She also repeatedly accused a cabal of senior Pakistani intelligence and government officials of plotting to kill her, notably in an attack that killed 139 people in Karachi on October 18, 2007 when she returned from exile.
Then president Pervez Musharraf and the US Central Intelligence Agency blamed Baitullah Mehsud, an Al-Qaeda-linked warlord based in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan, for masterminding the killing.
The commission will submit a report to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by end-December. The report will be shared with the Pakistani government and the UN Security Council.
Last edited: