UN Report on Benazir's Murder Released

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UNITED NATIONS: Pakistani police deliberately failed to properly probe the 2007 murder of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto which could have been averted if there had been adequate security, a UN-appointed independent panel said on Thursday.
“Ms Bhutto’s assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken,” said the report by a three-member panel headed by Chile’s UN ambassador Heraldo Munoz.
The panel said responsibility for Bhutto’s security on the day of her assassination rested with “the federal government, the government of Punjab and the Rawalpindi district police.” “None of these entities took the necessary measures to respond to the extraordinary, fresh, urgent security risks that they knew she faced,” it added.
The panel said it believed that the police’s failure to probe the slaying effectively “was deliberate.” “These officials, in part fearing intelligence agencies’ involvement, were unsure of how vigorously they ought to pursue actions, which they knew, as professionals, they should have taken,” it added.
The panel said the Pakistani probe “lacked direction, was ineffective and suffered from a lack of commitment to identify and bring all of the perpetrators to justice.” It added it was up to the Pakistani authorities to carry out a “serious, credible criminal investigation that determines who conceived, ordered and executed this heinous crime... and brings those responsible to justice.”
“While she died when a 15-and-a-half-year-old suicide bomber detonated his explosives near her vehicle, no one believes that this boy acted alone,” the report said. “The commission was mystified by the efforts of certain high-ranking Pakistani government authorities to obstruct access to military and intelligence sources,” it added.
The report said that the country’s president at the time of the assassination, General Pervez Musharraf, was aware of and tracking the many threats against Bhutto. But Musharraf’s government “did little more than pass on those threats to her and to provincial authorities and were not proactive in neutralizing them or ensuring that the security provided was commensurate to the threats,” it said.
The report said that the security arrangement made by the Pakistan Peoples Party were also ill-organised and characterised by lack of professionalism. It said the slain leader’s security in charge Major Imtiaz failed to provide effective leadership in ensuring her protection.
The report refused to accept the government justification that the crime scene was washed in a hurry to avoid public commotion. The report lamented that the commissions efforts to interview high profile military and civil officials were obstructed.

(The News: 16 April 2010)