UN delays release of Bhutto slaying report

UN: Bowing to Islamabad’s request, UN chief Ban Ki-moon delayed Tuesday until mid-April the release of a sensitive report by an independent panel probing the 2007 slaying of Pakistani ex-premier Benazir Bhutto.

The delay was announced hours after all UN offices in Pakistan were ordered temporarily closed as a security precaution amid fears of a violent reaction to the report’s release.

“The secretary general has accepted an urgent request by the president of Pakistan (Asif Ali Zardari) to delay the presentation of the report... until 15 April 2010,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told a press briefing.

He gave no explanation as to the reason for the request by Zardari, Bhutto’s widower who himself was questioned by the inquiry panel on February 24.

The UN-appointed independent panel, which began its investigations last July into Bhutto’s killing, had been due to submit its findings to Ban on Wednesday. Nesirky said the report would not be shown to the Pakistani government before April 15. Ban himself had not yet read the document, he added.

He said the commission informed Ban that “as of today, all relevant facts and circumstances have been explored, and the report is now complete and ready to be delivered.”

Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, was killed on December 27, 2007 in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad.

Her supporters cast doubt on an initial Pakistani probe into her death, questioning whether she was killed by a gunshot or the blast and criticizing authorities for hosing down the scene of the attack within minutes. Wednesdday, AFP