Less than two months later in December , she was assassinated during a gun and suicide bomb attack after a political rally. She was 54 years old. Load more comments. Search Search. Home United States U. Africa 54 - November 11, VOA Africa Listen live. VOA Newscasts Latest program. VOA Newscasts. Previous Next. East Asia. December 02, AM. Those who make the allegation, he said, should "shut up".
Asif Zardari faces another accusation: that despite having the powers of the presidency, he failed to properly investigate his wife's murder. Secret official documents relating to the investigation and obtained by the BBC show that the police inquiries were so poorly managed as to suggest they never wanted to find guilty parties beyond the low-level plotters they had already arrested.
The inadequacies of the police investigations were especially apparent after an unsuccessful attempt on Bhutto's life on 18 October - two and a half months before she was killed. Two suicide bombers attacked her convoy and killed more than people.
It remains one of the deadliest attacks ever mounted by violent jihadists in Pakistan. The police work was so half-hearted that the bombers were never even identified. The leader of the inquiry, Saud Mirza, has said that one man he established to have been a bomber had distinctive features, suggesting he came from a long-standing but small Karachi-based community of people of African descent. This potentially significant clue about the suspected bombers identity was never released to the public.
Former President Zardari answers criticisms about the thoroughness of the police work by pointing out that he encouraged the work of Scotland Yard in relation to the murder and secured the appointment of a UN commission of inquiry to examine the circumstances of her death.
That inquiry, however, says it was repeatedly and blatantly blocked not only by the military but also Zardari's ministers. And he said some of the obstacles came from the politicians as well as the military. As the investigation progressed, he said, the safe house the UN team used was withdrawn, as were the anti-terrorist personnel who were protecting the UN staff. That there was a cover-up is beyond doubt. A BBC investigation found evidence suggesting that two men who helped the teenage assassin reach Benazir Bhutto were themselves shot at a military checkpoint on 15 January A senior member of the Zardari government has told the BBC that he believes this was "an encounter" - the term Pakistanis use for extra-judicial killings.
Nadir and Nasrullah Khan were students at the Taliban-supporting Haqqania madrassa in north-west Pakistan. Other students associated with the seminary who were involved in the plot also died. One of the most detailed official documents obtained by the BBC is an official PowerPoint presentation given to the Sindh provincial assembly. It names Abad ur Rehman, a former student at the madrassa and bomb-maker who helped provide the suicide jacket used to kill Benazir Bhutto.
He was killed in one of Pakistan's remote tribal areas on 13 May Then there was Abdullah who, according to the Sindh assembly presentation, was involved in the transportation of the suicide vests ahead of the Rawalpindi attack that killed Bhutto.
He was killed in Mohmand Agency in northern Pakistan in an explosion on 31 May One of the most high-profile deaths related to the assassination was that of Khalid Shahenshah, one of Bhutto's security guards.
Shahenshah was within a few feet of Bhutto as she made her final speech in Rawalpindi. Phone footage shows him making a series of strange movements for which no one has offered any reasonable explanation. Although he kept his head completely still, he raised his eyes towards Bhutto while simultaneously running his fingers across his throat. Pictures of his gestures went viral and on 22 July Shahenshah was shot dead outside his home in Karachi.
The next victim was the state prosecutor, Chaudhry Zulfikar. A lawyer with reputation for high degrees of both competence and doggedness, he told friends he was making real progress on the Bhutto investigation.
On 3 May he was shot dead on the streets of Islamabad as he was being driven to a legal hearing on the case. Finally, there is a man who was said to be dead but, in fact, is still alive. In their confessions the alleged plotters said that on the day of the murder a second suicide bomber named Ikramullah accompanied Bilal.
Once Bilal had succeeded in his task, Ikramullah's services were not required and he walked away unharmed. For years Pakistani officials insisted that Ikramullah had been killed in a drone strike. In chief prosecutor Mohammad Azhar Chaudhry told the BBC evidence gathered by Pakistani investigating agencies, relatives and government officials established that "Ikramullah is dead".
In August , however, the Pakistani authorities published a page list of the country's most wanted terrorists. Coming in at number nine was Ikramullah, a resident of South Waziristan and involved, the list said, in the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto.
So far the only people punished in relation to the murder of Benazir Bhutto are two police officers who ordered the murder scene in Rawalpindi to be hosed down. Many Pakistanis regard those convictions as unfair, believing that the police would never have used the hoses without being told to do so by military.
It suggests, once again, a cover-up by Pakistan's deep state - the hidden network of retired and serving military personnel who take it upon themselves to protect what they consider Pakistan's vital national interests. Bhutto reportedly had been planning to give two visiting American lawmakers a page report accusing the Musharraf government of taking steps to rig the Jan. Mehsud has denied involvement. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.
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