World | Pakistan
Bhutto assassination probe grinds to a halt
More than six months after Benazir Bhutto's assassination, the Pakistani authorities' investigation of her killing appears to have ground to a near halt, with the trail growing colder.
- By Laura King, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
- Published: 23:40 July 4, 2008
Rawalpindi: More than six months after Benazir Bhutto's assassination, the Pakistani authorities' investigation of her killing appears to have ground to a near halt, with the trail growing colder.
The elegant and charismatic former prime minister, one of the most popular politicians in Pakistan's history, was murdered on December 27 as she left a campaign rally at a park in Rawalpindi, the seat of the Pakistani military.
Yet while her death at 54 stunned Pakistan and the world, no independent Pakistani commission has been appointed to investigate the assassination, and police activity is barely sputtering along, according to several people familiar with the case.
The lack of progress comes despite the fact that her Pakistan Peoples Party is now the senior partner in the country's governing coalition, and her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, wields enormous influence as the party's leader.
"It looks as if it's a forgotten chapter," said Talat Massood, a retired general who is now a political analyst. "The internal agencies are not very active and focused on it."
Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban commander swiftly blamed by the Pakistani government for masterminding the assassination, remains free in Pakistan's tribal areas. Military officials say there has been no attempt to capture him.
Arrested people
Beyond accusing Mehsud, the government has made little visible headway. The cases of five people arrested in the weeks following Bhutto's death are being heard before a special anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi. But even the prosecution describes the accused as relatively low-level figures in the plot. Naseer Ahmad Tanoli, the lawyer for three of the five accused, says his clients have been subjected to torture and prevented from seeing family members or legal counsel. The court proceedings are secret, but another session is scheduled for mid-July, lawyers said.
The key players in Bhutto's killing - those who financed the operation and recruited the assailants - remain at large, said a senior police official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Police have been ordered not to speak publicly about the case. Two senior officers reneged on an agreement to be interviewed about the status of the investigation, saying they could not discuss it without the authorisation of Rehman Malik, the top official in the Interior Ministry, Pakistan's top civilian law-enforcement agency.
Malik did not respond to requests for an interview or for permission to talk to investigators. A Peoples Party loyalist, Malik was Bhutto's senior security adviser at the time of the assassination, and his own decision-making about her security arrangements has been sharply criticised.
The possibility of involvement by former or current figures in the government or security agencies has never gotten a full airing, analysts say. "There are two ways to kill a person: one is to attack them, and the other is to make sure security is so lax, you know that one of a number of people coming at them will succeed," said Ikram Sehgal, a former senior military official who is now a journalist and analyst.
Doctors who attended to Bhutto on the night of her killing have also been ordered to remain silent - restrictions initially put in place by the previous government led by President Pervez Musharraf.
Asked whether the transfer of political power to Bhutto's party meant he could now speak freely about the case, a doctor from Rawalpindi General Hospital replied: "No way, no way." The doctor, who was present as a team of physicians fought to save the former prime minister's life, demanded anonymity fearing reprisal from Pakistan's security services.
Before taking power in elections held six weeks after the assassination, Bhutto's party expressed deep scepticism about the government's version of events surrounding the killing.
At the time, her party's officials were also demanding an investigation of several former and current government officials whom Bhutto had named as a threat to her security. She cited the names in a letter to Musharraf, written after she escaped uninjured from a massive suicide bombing that killed more than 150 people in the port city of Karachi during her homecoming convoy last October.
Request
None of those mentioned have been formally called for questioning. And one, former Intelligence Bureau chief Ejaz Shah, was allowed to leave Pakistan in March, according to officials and Pakistani news reports.
Bhutto's party now says it has no plans to appoint an independent Pakistani commission, saying that only the United Nations can carry out a credible investigation. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in late June that the request was under review.
Bhutto's memory still inspires her followers. Thousands of weeping supporters converged on her ancestral hometown on June 21, what would have been her 55th birthday. Mourners still leave flowers and light candles at the spot where she died.
Yet despite the outpouring of grief and rage at the time of the assassination, there is little public outcry over the lack of progress in the investigation. "There are so many other things now to occupy people's attention: food prices, gasoline prices, power shortages, the militancy," said Omar Qureishi, opinion editor of the nationally circulated newspaper The News. "It's not that people don't care, but they feel overwhelmed by other things.
It looks as if it's a forgotten chapter. The internal agencies are not very active and focused on it."
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