UN commission probes Bhutto death in Pakistan

PAKISTAN: The UN commission set up to investigate the assassination of Pakistani former prime minister Benazir Bhutto opened its first inquiries in Islamabad on Thursday and held talks with her widower.

Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, was killed in late December 2007 in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad.

The government called for a UN inquiry after Bhutto's party won a general election in February 2008 with her supporters angered by conflicting accounts of how she died and who was responsible.

They cast doubt on a Pakistani probe into her death, criticised authorities for hosing down the scene of the attack within minutes allegedly destroying evidence and questioning whether she was killed by a gunshot or the blast. AFP