UN delays publishing Bhutto death report
The United Nations has delayed the release of a report into the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto at the request of Pakistan.UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said they had accepted “an urgent request by the president of Pakistan” to postpone its publication until 15 April.
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Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, was killed on 27 December 2007 in a gun and suicide attack in Rawalpindi.
The report into her death, prepared by an independent, UN-appointed panel, was due to be presented to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday.
Nesirky said it would be made public and that it would not be shown to the Pakistani government before 15 April. He added that Ban had not yet read the document.
Earlier a UN spokeswoman in Islamabad said all UN offices in Pakistan would close for three days from Wednesday as a security precaution taken because of the release of the Bhutto report.
The panel that investigated Bhutto's death is headed by Chilean ambassador to the UN Heraldo Munoz. It also includes former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman and Peter Fitzgerald, a former Irish police officer. They began their investigation last July.
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