President Musharraf accused over Benazir Bhutto death

Assassinated: Benazir Bhutto was killed by a suicide bomber in 2007
12 April 2012

A new UN report blames Pakistan's security establishment, under then president Pervez Musharraf, for failing to stop the assassination in 2007 of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Aides to the country's president, Asif Ali Zardari, who is also Ms Bhutto's widower, said the development paves the way for a "proper police investigation" into her killing.

Ms Bhutto was killed by a 15-year-old suicide bomber as she was leaving a rally in Rawalpindi, where she was campaigning to return her Pakistan People's Party to power in parliamentary elections after she had spent one and a half years in exile.

The three-member UN panel said her death could have been prevented if the government and Rawalpindi police had taken adequate measures "to respond to the extraordinary, fresh and urgent security risks that they knew she faced".

It also found that the investigation into her death was hampered by intelligence agencies and other government officials, "which impeded an unfettered search for the truth".

"No one believes that this boy [the bomber] acted alone," the report said, criticising the investigation for pursuing "lower level operatives," not those further up the hierarchy.

"Ms Bhutto faced threats from a number of sources. These included al Qaeda, the Taliban, local jihadi groups and potentially from elements in the Pakistani establishment."

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