UN delays Benazir murder report at Zardari’s request: The News

UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday accepted a request from President Asif Zardari to delay the release of a report on the assassination of his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, until April 15.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky made the announcement just two hours before a three-member UN commission that investigated Benazir’s death was scheduled to hold a press conference to discuss the report’s findings. Nesirky said he did not know why President Asif Ali Zardari made the request, which was received at the UN overnight.

But presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the country had requested the delay so the commission could attempt to question two heads of state who, he said, had called Benazirbefore her death warning her of “serious threats to her life.”

He declined to say which heads of state he was referring to, saying it would be unethical. It was unclear why the commission had not spoken to them. “This can make the report more credible,” he told the AP in Islamabad.

Nesirky said the commission informed Ban that “all relevant facts and circumstances have been explored and the report is now complete and ready to be delivered.” The three-member commission is led by Chile’s UN Ambassador Heraldo Munoz. The other members are former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman, now a member of the National Commission of Human Rights, and Ireland’s former deputy police commissioner Peter Fitzgerald, who headed the initial UN inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

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