Feature: Benazir Bhutto’s death remains unresolved as Pakistan marks her 5th death anniversary
http://www.nzweek.com/world/feature...kistan-marks-her-5th-death-anniversary-39790/
by Muhammad Tahir
ISLAMABAD, Dec. 27 — The mystery surrounding the assassination of Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto remains unresolved five years after her violent death in a suicide attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Dec. 27, 2007.
Benazir Bhutto, the Western-educated daughter of the martyred Pakistani founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, ruled Pakistan twice and was the first elected woman prime minister in the Muslim world.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan on Oct. 18, 2007 ending her years of exile abroad and hundreds of thousands of people received her at Karachi. Bombers targeted her supporters at her welcoming rally, killing over 150 people including Bhutto, in well-coordinated attacks.
President Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir’s husband, had once announced that he knows the people who killed his wife and that he would expose them in due time but nothing has come out yet.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik promised this month that he will reveal the brains in the Bhutto assassination on her 5th death anniversary.
All eyes are now focused on the gathering of the stalwarts of the ruling Pakistan Peoples’ Party at Bhutto’s mausoleum in south Sindh province Thursday as to what President Zardari and other senior leaders of the party would say about the investigations.
The mystery will haunt the PPP if it fails to expose those behind Bhutto’s tragic death during its five-year government, when the party had its own president and prime minister and all security agencies under their control.
The then government of former President Pervez Musharraf blamed Pakistani Taliban for Bhutto’s murder but the claim was quickly rejected by a spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). No group has yet claimed responsibility for the gruesome attack.
On Musharraf’s request, the British government had sent a police team from Scotland Yard to help investigate the assassination after the PPP had expressed serious doubts on the then government’s version of the attack.
When the PPP won parliamentary elections in February 2008, the new government conducted its own investigation into the incident with the help of a team of United Nations experts.
In its findings in 2010, the UN team said that Bhutto’s assassination could have been prevented if proper security measures were undertaken.
The UN report had also criticized Pakistani officials for failing to protect Bhutto and security officials were hit for not investigating her death properly.
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has been conducting a trial of seven men accused of involvement in Bhutto’s assassination but they have denied any role in the attack. However, the investigators said some of the suspects had facilitated the attackers.
The court has not yet delivered its final verdict on the case despite years of hearings.
Pakistani investigators said that Musharraf had failed to put in place a proper security mechanism for Bhutto and the court has issued arrest warrant for him after he failed to appear and record his statement.
The Federal Investigative Agency (FIA), which is investigating the case, said Musharraf was named in the charge sheet as he had failed to provide the “VVIP security” that Bhutto was entitled to as a two-time prime minister.
Bhutto’s family friend and her lobbyist in the U.S. Mark Siegel said that he was with Bhutto in London when Musharraf told her that her life would be in danger if she returns to Pakistan a few months before the 2008 parliamentary elections.
The trial court has summoned Siegel, also a journalist, in the first week of January to record his statement. Pakistani investigators said that Siegel has agreed to record his statement.
Musharraf, who has been living in exile since his resignation in 2008, has denied any involvement in the Bhutto murder and said he will defend himself in Pakistani courts.
He insisted that it was not duty of the president to provide security to the former prime minister, claiming that he had warned Bhutto about threats to her life before the attack.
