A report by a United Nations commission of inquiry released in New York on Thursday said her killing by a 15-year-old suicide bomber could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken. The UN report heavily criticised the Pakistani authorities, saying they had “severely hampered” the investigation.
The report did not say who it believed was guilty of the crime, but suggested that any credible investigation should also look at those who
conceived, planned and financed the operation — and should not exclude
the possible involvement of Pakistan’s powerful Army and all-pervasive Inter-Services Intelligence, which have been described as “a state within a state”.
The probe focused on the circumstances surrounding Bhutto’s death. Pakistan is still left with the responsibility of determining who carried out the assassination, one of the most dramatic events in the country’s turbulent history.
Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack after an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007, weeks after she returned to Pakistan from years in self-imposed exile. The government of the day, led by allies of then President Pervez Musharraf, blamed then Pakistani Taliban leader and Al Qaeda ally Baitullah Mehsud for the murder.
The three UN investigators who conducted a nine-month inquiry, headed by Chile’s UN ambassador Heraldo Munoz, believe the failure to effectively examine Bhutto’s death was “deliberate”, the report said. It called on the Pakistani authorities to carry out a “serious, credible criminal investigation that determines who conceived, ordered and executed this heinous crime of historic proportions” and bring those responsible to justice.
Pakistan arrested five Islamist militants in 2008 on suspicion of involvement in Bhutto’s assassination. They were being tried in an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi but the current government requested the court stop the trial as it wanted to reinvestigate.
The police said the Federal Investigation Agency, the government’s main
criminal investigation arm, was now conducting the probe. “We are not oblivious of our responsibilities to carry out investigations,” presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said.
Bhutto was mistrusted by parts of Pakistan’s military and security
establishment. Speculation has lingered she was the victim of a plot by allies of Gen. Musharraf, who did not want her to come to power.
The toughly worded UN report said Gen. Musharraf was aware of and tracking the many threats against Bhutto. But his government did little more
than pass on those threats to her and the provincial authorities, it said.
Retired Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, a spokesman for Gen. Musharraf, said it was “ridiculous” to hold his government responsible and that Chile’s UN ambassador was “not Sherlock Holmes”.
“The blame has been fixed on the previous administration, especially for those who were responsible for her security,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political and security analyst. “Now the challenge for the government is to carry out its own investigations. There will be pressure on the government and even within the Pakistan People’s Party to proceed against officers who are still in service.”
But the authorities might hesitate to explore too deeply, especially the possibility that the Army or security forces played a role, as the report suggests they may have. “There is no will to really delve into all kinds of linkages which implicate people who are still in the know, who are still in the country,” said Simbal Khan, acting director of the Eurasian Studies
Institute of Strategic Studies.
“I think it will be very difficult for them to convince everybody that this is going to be a real thorough investigation. It will be something that will be put on the backburner again.”
The report questioned why former Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz
gave approval to the ranking police officer at the crime scene to hose down the area, a move that damaged evidence. It quoted unnamed officials who said the order may have come from military.
Asked to comment on the findings, Mr Aziz told Reuters: “There will be further investigation, and I will give my answer.”
The findings were made public on the same day that Pakistan’s Senate passed constitutional amendments stripping unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s widower, of his main powers and handing them to the Prime Minister and Parliament. — Reuters
Zeeshan Haider