Pak govt formally requests UN to probe Benazir killing

After nearly five months of former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the PPP-led Pakistan government has formally requested the United Nations to investigate her killing.

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 asking for investigation.

“Akram has left for New York and will deliver the request soon,” the Dawn quoted a Foreign Office spokesman a saying.

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, added the paper.

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,” said the FO statement.

Benazir paid with her life for defying US

Former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto was killed because she didn’t stick to the deal which she struck with the US ensuring her return to Pakistan from her decade-long exile in London, the country’s former COAS Mirza Aslam Beg has said.

He said she was killed because of her anti-American policy.

Addressing the general house meeting of the Lahore Bar Association (LBA), Baig said Benazir had initially worked out a deal with US administration to return to Pakistan, but after judging the intensity of anti-Musharraf sentiment back home, she could not toe the US line.

“Now the US is dealing with Asif Ali Zardari to achieve its interests,” the Dawn quoted him as saying.

He said the lawyers should have their own political agenda for materialising their plans, suggesting them to form a coordination committee to communicate with political parties. The imposition of emergency on November 3 created problems, which were still dragging their feet, he said and added that though Musharraf was breathing the last of his political life, some quarters were still busy hatching conspiracies.

He said the mandate of the Feb 18 elections proved to be against the US interests in the region.

UN probe into Benazirs murder against Paks sovereignty says petition

A political leader in Pakistan, said to be belonging to a nationalist party, is learnt to have moved the country’s Supreme Court against the federal government’s move to go for UN probe and spending nearly Rs 700 crore rupees on the same.

The petitioner, Watan Party’s Punjab president Hashim Shaukat Khan, contended that if the probe was conducted by the UN, people will lose confidence in the country’s investigating and legal institutions.

New book reveals that Musharraf-Bhutto conversation was recorded

Benazir Bhutto''s phone calls with President General Pervez Musharraf prior to her arrival in Pakistan, were taped by the US intelligence agencies, in a bid to "play under-the-table, cut-throat games more effectively”, reveals a new book.

Pulitzer Prize winning US journalist Ron Suskind says in his book, "The Way of the World" has fair portion of Musharraf-Bhutto conversations including Musharraf''s quote "You should understand something, your security is based on the state of our relationship".

US abandoned Benazir, says author of new book on US-Pak ties

An American journalist has claimed that the Bush Administration abandoned former Pakistan Prime Minister and leader of the Pakistan People''s Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto, which needed Washington the most to make her political comeback in Pakistan after more than eight years of self-imposed exile.

PPPP - Benazir Bhutto's Faction

It's the flag of the Pakistan People's Party, of which Benazir Bhutto is the leader. Flags of political parties throughout the sub-continent tend to be modified at the whim of the maker: crescents, stars, slogans, images of people, (usually the leader), etc., are all commonly displayed on them.

Bibi & Halry Clinton

The US First Lady Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea visit Pakistan