Islamabad: Pakistan has formally asked the United Nations to probe the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, her husband Asif Ali Zardari said Friday.
"The request has been sent to the United Nations," Zardari told reporters in Islamabad. He said the country's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi would soon hold a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York to "personally deliberate with him on the issue." Zardari heads Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) that leads the new coalition government formed after a thrashing defeat of political backers of President Pervez Musharraf in the Feb 18 elections.
Following Bhutto's assassination in a gun-suicide attack late last year in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, the former government accused a pro-Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud for ordering it. But he has repeatedly denied the allegations. The PPP also raised doubts over last government's claims. Fingers were pointed at some elements within the country's intelligence agencies.
The PPP called for a UN probe but Musharraf rejected the demand and asked experts from Britain's Scotland Yard to assist the investigations, which were rejected by the party on the grounds that it did not reveal who was behind the attack.
