Pakistani president persuades U.N. to delay report on Bhutto assassination

UNITED NATIONS -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari prevailed upon the United Nations on Tuesday to delay for two weeks the release of a fact-finding report that is expected to criticize Pakistan's security establishment in connection with the assassination of his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in 2007.

The move represents a political retreat by the Pakistani leader, who requested the U.N. probe during his first weeks in office but who now faces challenges to his authority on several fronts. The Pakistani parliament is moving to strip him of powers he inherited from the former military government, and the Supreme Court is set to reopen two corruption cases against him. The United Nations announced the delay about two hours before a three-member commission was scheduled to release the report.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had "accepted an urgent request by the president of Pakistan" to put off the release until April 15, according to Martin Nesirky, Ban's chief spokesman, who provided no explanation for the request. The report has not been presented to Ban or to the Pakistani government.

Pakistan pressed the United Nations on Tuesday to reopen the investigation to consider new evidence. Pakistan's presidential spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, told the Associated Press that the U.N. commission should question two unidentified heads of state that he claimed had called Bhutto before her death to warn of "serious threats to her life." But the United Nations said Tuesday that the investigation is complete.

The fact-finding panel, headed by Chile's U.N. ambassador, Heraldo Muñoz, conducted a nine-month inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the Dec. 27, 2007, attack after an election campaign rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The assassination, just 10 weeks after Bhutto's return from exile, sparked riots throughout Pakistan.

The report does not place blame on individuals for ordering the killing, according to U.N. officials. But it sharply criticizes Pakistan's military for not providing Bhutto with adequate security that day, and it also faults the former military government for allowing the crime scene and Bhutto's vehicle to be washed shortly after the killing.

A senior U.N.-based diplomat, who has met with members of the commission, said the report is also consistent with the findings of a Scotland Yard team that concluded Bhutto was killed by a single suicide bomber who blew up her vehicle. The team did not determine whether someone ordered the killing.

The last-minute request for a delay comes about 18 months after Zardari personally appealed to Ban to conduct a wide-ranging probe into his wife's killing. At the time, Zardari said he was less interested in holding the killers accountable than in having the United Nations produce an exhaustive document honoring Bhutto's democratic crusade in the face of Islamist extremism.

"I'm not looking to hang three 17-year-olds who were misguided by someone," Zardari said in a September 2008 interview with The Washington Post. "We are fighting for a cause that is larger than us."