Karachi: Both the United Nations and Joint Investigation Team reports blame former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf for former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, an article in an American daily has said.
The reports come in the wake of criminal proceedings against the seven accused in the case, including Musharraf, and the Pakistan government requesting Interpol to issue an international warrant for Musharraf’s arrest.
According to Mark Siegel’s article in the New York Daily News, the United Nations’ 70-page report concludes that the failure of the police to effectively probe Bhutto’s assassination, and the destruction of evidence, was deliberate and ordered from above.
The UN also found that the assassination would have been averted had the Pakistan authorities made adequate security arrangements, The News reports.
The JIT report said Musharraf, working along with two police officers, was aware of the assassination plot against Bhutto and its timing and personally ordered the destruction of evidence.
The police officers facilitated the terrorists, who devised various phases of the plot, from conception to execution and cover-up operations, it added.
Despite the fact that Musharraf had ordered security teams to guard two other former prime ministers who were his political supporters, Bhutto was provided with virtually no security.
She was assassinated on December 27, 2007 as she left a campaign event in Rawalpindi.
Siegel’s article said Musharraf had threatened Bhutto with dire consequences if she returned to Pakistan to lead her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the upcoming elections.
Bhutto had, subsequently, e-mailed her adviser and friend Siegel to say that Musharraf was to be blamed if happened to her.
ANI
First Published: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 16:11