UN formally asked to take up BB’s probe
Foreign Desk Report

UNITED NATIONS—Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador Munir Akram handed over to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon a formal letter from the Government of Pakistan seeking a U.N. probe into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto when he called on the world body chief on Friday, according to well informed sources.
Details of the letter which Ambassador Akram brought with him from Islamabad were not disclosed. Last week, he was in Pakistan where he had consultations with the country’s top leadership.
Ms. Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack in Rawalpindi in December. Pakistan has formally requested a United Nations investigation into the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, her widower says. “We have already sent the request,” Asif Ali Zardari told reporters after a meeting of the Socialist International Asia-Pacific Committee in Islamabad.
Mr Zardari took over leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) after his wife was killed by a suicide gun and bomb attack while campaigning in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27. Thanks in part to a sympathy wave, the PPP won an election in February and forged a coalition with three other parties after defeating political allies of President Pervez Musharraf. Mr Zardari says Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will travel to New York to personally discuss the issue with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.
Mr Musharraf has opposed a UN investigation of Ms Bhutto’s killing, and the previous government blamed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud of being behind the conspiracy to kill Ms Bhutto. Mehsud has issued a denial from his stronghold in the South Waziristan tribal lands close to the Afghan border.
The Government earlier invited help from Britain’s Scotland Yard to determine how Bhutto was killed, though the British police were not asked to investigate who killed her. Scotland Yard backed up the Government’s earlier conclusion that Ms Bhutto smashed her head against her vehicle during the attack. The PPP harbours deep suspicions over the Government’s findings and doubts whether Mehsud was the real culprit. Ms Bhutto had long feared members of the Pakistani establishment would plot to kill her after she returned from years of self-exile in October. Police have arrested at least four Islamist militants suspected of involvement in Ms Bhutto’s killing. The United Nations has been formally requested to investigate Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and a formal note has been handed over to Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN Munir Akram who will hand it over to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
“Mr Akram has left for New York and will deliver the request soon,” an official of the Foreign Office said. Pakistan has urged the UN to form a commission to expose ‘perpetrators, financiers and the mastermind’ of the December 27 assassination through an independent and impartial investigation.
The government said that it was seeking an international probe because it suspected an ‘international conspiracy’ behind the assassination and uncovering such a conspiracy was ‘beyond the capacity of local investigators’. Earlier, the government had planned to send a delegation to the UN, but because of some difficulties, it decided to ask its permanent representative at the UN to submit the request. “The secretary-general’s office proposed certain dates, but the foreign minister had other commitments.” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi would visit New York for lobbying with the permanent members of the Security Council for early constitution of the commission.