...boodling on the grand scale...
(UN) investigator in a probe into former prime minister Benazir Bhutto
... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in...
's liquidation, doubts the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) independently carried out the attack, but does not discount suspicions about involvement of intelligence operatives in her murder and later covering up of evidence.
An adaptation from Mr Munoz's upcoming book, 'Getting away with the murder -- Behind the Investigation of Benazir Bhutto's Assassination', published on Foreign Affairs magazine's website, expresses fears that the murder would remain unsolved because of absence of both capacity and willingness of the government and courts to solve the case.
Mr Munoz, currently UN Assistant Secretary General, had headed the UN Commission of Inquiry into the liquidation appointed by Secretary General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
on the government's request in July 2009. The commission submitted its report to the secretary general in March 2010.
The publishing of the article coincided with the indictment of former military ruler retired Gen
Pervez PervMusharraf
... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...
by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi in the Benazir liquidation case.
Mr Munoz believes Gen Musharraf may have facilitated the killing by ignoring Ms Bhutto's security needs after their political deal went sour and does not absolve him of moral and political responsibility.
"Suspicions of the ISI's -- or at least of some retired officers or rogue members of the agency -- involvement in the liquidation were not unfounded," he observed in the article after narrating his meetings with army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani
... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
and then ISI director general Lt Gen Shuja Pasha.
The UN investigator has recounted that army chief Kayani had doubts about Pak Taliban's involvement in the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Kayani suspected whether the slain chief of TTP, Baitullah Mehsud had organised the liquidation, as was claimed by an interior ministry front man at a news conference a day after Bhutto's death on December 27, 2007.
Musharraf's government based its claim on Mehsud's telephonic conversation intercepted by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Kayani had called the presser "premature" and that "It should not have been done," Heraldo Munoz wrote in his book.
"One cannot conclude culpability solely on a phone intercept," the army chief was quoted as saying by Munoz, who headed a UN panel that investigated Benazir Bhutto's liquidation.