Bhutto’s party vows to seek UN inquiry into her death

THE party of slain Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto will call on the UN for an inquiry into her assassination if it forms a government after elections next month, said a party spokesman yesterday.

The Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, has aired deep suspicions over the motives and identities of Ms Bhutto’s assassins. “If the PPP comes to power, we will ask the UN to hold an inquiry,” said Farhatullah Babar, a senior official in Ms Bhutto’s party who accuses the government of screening the real culprits.

The Pakistani government has blamed al-Qaida and initially said Ms Bhutto was killed when the suicide-bomb blast threw her head against the sun-roof lever of the car in which she was standing, despite TV footage showing a gunman firing at her head a split second before.

The official version, which also contradicted witness reports of gunshot wounds, has stoked suspicions among Pakistanis that government or military elements opposed to the country’s transition to civilian-led democracy were behind the attack. On Saturday, CBS News quoted President Pervez Musharraf as conceding a gunman might have shot Ms Bhutto after all.

Mr Musharraf has announced Britain’s Scotland Yard would help with the investigation into Ms Bhutto’s death but this fell short of the PPP’s demand for a UN inquiry, such as the one into the 2005 killing of former Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri.

Pakistan’s elections have been delayed until February 18 from January 8.

Meanwhile, Pakistan said yesterday it will not let US forces hunt al-Qaida and Taliban militants on its soil, after a news report said Washington was considering expanding operations into Pakistan’s tribal regions.

“The government has said it so many times,” said Major General Waheed Arshad, the army’s top spokesman.

“No foreign forces will be allowed to operate inside Pakistan.”