KARACHI, Jan 16: Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday formally sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary General, urging the world body to set up an international commission for investigation into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

According to Senator Farooq H. Naek, copies of the letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon have been sent to five permanent members of the Security Council because the government refused to forward it to the world body as requested by the PPP.

The letter requests the UN to “bring the perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice”.

“The letter makes a case for undertaking investigations by a UN commission, recalling the concerns shown by the Security Council on Oct 22, 2007, soon after the bomb attack on a home-coming rally of Ms Bhutto in Karachi on Oct 18 which killed 179 people and injured over 600,” said Mr Naek, who has been representing Ms Bhutto and Mr Zardari in various cases and references within and outside Pakistan.

The letter signed by Mr Zardari mentions details of the events leading to Ms Bhutto’s assassination and apprehensions about security she had expressed from time to time, including an email message of October 16, 2007, sent to her publicist Mark Siegal in New York and the failure and neglect of the regime to address her apprehensions.

The letter, along with supporting documents and annexure, apprises the UN secretary general of the shifting of regime’s stand on the assassination and the hosing down of available and other supporting evidence and called for a commission under the UN to be named “Ms Benazir Bhutto Inquiry Commission”.

Mr Zardari also cited a letter Ms Bhutto had sent to President Pervez Musharraf on Oct 16 —two days prior to her return to Pakistan. She said in the letter that she had been informed by the government that certain militant groups wanted to attack her. Ms Bhutto had also written many letters to the government informing it of the need to provide security to her in view of the precarious law and order situation in the country.

Referring to various requests made by Ms Bhutto for her security, Mr Zardari informed the secretary-general that the Pakistani authorities had failed in taking adequate measures for her security.

He recalled that the government had refused to register an FIR following the failed assassination attempt on Ms Bhutto’s life on Oct 18 in Karachi despite court order.

Mr Zardari maintained that had the FIR been lodged against persons and organisations whom the PPP suspected were behind the Oct 18 attack, Ms Bhutto would not have been assassinated nine weeks later. He said that Joseph Biden, Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and two other senators had also called for providing an adequate security to Ms Bhutto.

On October 23, 2007, Senator Naek had received a letter posted from Rawalpindi on Oct 11. The letter written by the head of suicide bombers and friend of Al Qaida had threatened to kill Ms Bhutto. The letter was made public, but the government had failed to pay any attention to it, the PPP co-chairman said the letter.

He claimed that security arrangements on Dec 27 were so inadequate that one of the killers was able to get close to Ms Bhutto.

He alleged that the government in order to conceal its failure to protect Ms Bhutto came up with the implausible explanation that Ms Bhutto died when her head hit the lever of the sunroof of her vehicle.

He alleged that soon after the incident the government quickly washed the crime site and blamed Al Qaeda and Baitullah Mehsud for the assassination and relayed a conversation of two men discussing matters pertaining to her death.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the investigation by Pakistani agencies, Mr Zardari maintained that he was demanding the UN-led inquiry because it would not be under the control of the Pakistani authorities. “Its findings will be credible in the eyes of Pakistani people who want to know the truth behind the assassination of Ms Bhutto.”

He said that the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based HR think tank, and other international organisations had also called for such a commission.