"As a U.N. commission last month finalized its wide-ranging probe into Benazir Bhutto's 2007 assassination, the Pakistani press began publishing a flurry of leaks suggesting the U.N. sleuths had overlooked promising leads and failed to interview key witnesses, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had purportedly warned the former prime minister her life was in danger..........
U.N. commission to reopen the investigation, arguing that a more thorough examination of evidence is required. Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari, said Pakistan has asked the commission to question two unidentified heads of state who warned Bhutto of "serious threats to her life." Babar told the Associated Press the interviews "can make the report more credible."
The revelations surfaced shortly after Zardari, who was Bhutto's husband, made an urgent appeal to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to delay the release of the U.N. commission's report. Zardari, who had pressed Ban to authorize an investigation into her death weeks after he was sworn in as Pakistan's new leader, provided no explanation as to why he wanted to delay the release of the findings.
The move represents a political retreat by the Pakistani leader, who is now facing challenges to his authority on several fronts. The Pakistani parliament is moving to strip him of powers he inherited from Pakistan's military government, and Pakistan's Supreme Court is set to reopen a pair of corruption cases against him.
"For two years now the government of Pakistan has been pushing for a U.N. investigation into what happened," a U.N.-based official familiar with the probe told Turtle Bay. "Now that the work is done, the information coming from them seems to be geared towards discrediting whatever the commission produces."
The three-member U.N. commission, headed by
Chilean U.N. ambassador Heraldo Muñoz, conducted a nine-month-long investigation into the circumstances surrounding the assassination of Bhutto, who had returned to Pakistan in October 2008 following an eight-year exile to campaign in elections for the country's presidency. The commission also includes former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman, and Ireland's former deputy police commissioner, Peter Fitzgerald, who conducted a damning 2005 probe that linked Syrian authorities to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. ......
........The U.N. investigators have held meetings with several current and past Pakistani military, intelligence, and law enforcement officials, including former military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf. A senior U.N.-based official confirmed that Munoz's team had sought interviews with Rice and other foreign dignitaries believed to have information. (Side note: Rice was a classmate of Munoz's at the University of Colorado. They both studied under professor Josef Korbel, a former Czech diplomat and scholar whose daughter, Madeleine K. Albright, went on to become the first female U.S. secretary of state.) But Rice and others refused to cooperate with the U.N. commission, which lacks subpoena power to compel sources to testify, according to a second U.N.-based officials familiar with the probe. Asked to respond, a spokeswoman for Rice, Caroline Beswick, told Turtle Bay: "Unfortunately, Dr. Rice is not granting interviews at this time. Thank you for your request." ............
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