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.