UN REPORT ON BHUTTO MURDER FINDS PAKISTANI OFFICIALS 'FAILED
PROFOUNDLY'
New York, Apr 15 2010
http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Pakistan/UN_Bhutto_Report_15April2010.pdfSecurity arrangements by Pakistan's federal and local authorities to
protect assassinated Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto were "fatally
insufficient and ineffective" and subsequent investigations into her
death were prejudiced and involved a whitewash, an independent United
Nations inquiry <"http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Pakistan/
UN_Bhutto_Report_15April2010.pdf">reported today.
The UN Commission of Inquiry, appointed last year by Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon at the request of the Pakistani Government, reached no
conclusion as to the organizers and sponsors behind the attack in
which a 15-year-old suicide bomber blew up Ms. Bhutto's vehicle in the
city of Rawalpindi on 27 December 2007.
But it found that the Government was quick to blame local Taliban
commander Baitullah Mehsud and Al-Qaida although Ms. Bhutto's foes
potentially included elements from the establishment itself.
"A range of Government officials failed profoundly in their efforts
first to protect Ms. Bhutto and second to investigate with vigour all
those responsible for her murder, not only in the execution of the
attack, but also in its conception, planning and financing," the
Commission said.
"Responsibility for Ms. 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
necessary measures to respond to the extraordinary, fresh and urgent
security risks that they knew she faced."
General Pervez Musharraf was president at the time of the suicide
bombing in Rawalpindi. The report said the then federal Government
lacked a comprehensive security plan, relying instead on provincial
authorities, but then failed to issue to them the necessary
instructions.
"Particularly inexcusable was the Government's failure to direct
provincial authorities to provide Ms. Bhutto the same stringent and
specific security measures it ordered on 22 October 2007 for two other
former prime ministers who belonged to the main political party
supporting General Musharraf," it stated.
"This discriminatory treatment is profoundly troubling given the
devastating attempt on her life only three days earlier and the
specific threats against her which were being tracked by the ISI
(Inter-Services Intelligence agency)," it added, stressing that her
assassination could have been prevented if the Rawalpindi District
Police had taken adequate security measures.
Turning to the immediate aftermath of the attack, the Commission found
that police actions and omissions, including the hosing down of the
crime scene and failure to collect and preserve evidence, inflicted
irreparable damage to the investigation.
"The collection of 23 pieces of evidence was manifestly inadequate in
a case that should have resulted in thousands," it said. "The one
instance in which the authorities reviewed these actions, the Punjab
(provincial) committee of inquiry into the hosing down of the crime
scene was a whitewash. Hosing down the crime scene so soon after the
blast goes beyond mere incompetence; it is up to the relevant
authorities to determine whether this amounts to criminal
responsibility."
It also found that City Police Officer Saud Aziz impeded investigators
from conducting on-site investigations until two full days after the
assassination and that the Government's assertions that Mr. Mehsud and
Al-Qaida were responsible were made well before any proper
investigation had started, pre-empting, prejudicing and hindering the
subsequent investigation.
"Ms. Bhutto faced serious threats in Pakistan from a number of
sources," the Commission said. "These included Al-Qaida, the Taliban
and local jihadi groups, and potentially from elements in the
Pakistani establishment. Notwithstanding these threats, the
investigation into her assassination focused on pursuing lower-level
operatives allegedly linked to Baitullah Mehsud."
It stressed that investigators dismissed the possibility of
involvement by elements of the Pakistani establishment, including the
three persons identified by Ms. Bhutto as threats to her in her 16
October 2007 letter to General Musharraf. It also noted that
investigations were severely hampered by intelligence agencies and
other Government officials, which impeded an unfettered search for the
truth.
"The Commission believes that the failures of the police and other
officials to react effectively to Ms. Bhutto's assassination were, in
most cases, deliberate," it declared.
The three-member panel, which was headed by Chilean Ambassador to UN
Heraldo Muñoz and included Marzuki Darusman, former attorney-general
of Indonesia, and Peter Fitzgerald, a veteran official of the Irish
National Police, urged the Government to undertake police reform in
view of its "deeply flawed performance and conduct."
It also recommended the establishment of a fully independent Truth and
Reconciliation Commission to investigate political killings,
disappearances and terrorism in Pakistan in recent years in view of
the backdrop of a history of political violence carried out with
impunity.
Ms. Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, is the current Pakistani
President.
http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=4494
In a <"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=4494">statement
issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban commended the commissioners and
their staff for completing their challenging nine-and-a-half month-
long task "expeditiously and in a professional manner."
In a later news conference today, Mr. Muñoz stressed that the
Commission interviewed more than 250 interviews with Pakistanis and
others both inside and outside Pakistan, reviewed hundreds of
documents, videos, photographs and other documentary material provided
by federal and provincial authorities in Pakistan and others.
In the report, the Commission said it was "by the efforts of certain
high-ranking Pakistani Government authorities to obstruct access to
military and intelligence sources" but during an extension of its
mandate until 31 March it was able eventually to meet with some past
and present members of the Pakistani military and intelligence
services.
--
Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth. - Mohandas Gandhi
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Paramilitaries during a demobilization ceremony, Colombia. 
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