You are here: UN commission’s mandate to probe Benazir’s assassination has begun
UN commission’s mandate to probe Benazir’s assassination has begun
Submitted by Business Desk on July 2, 2009 - 18:37
The six-month mandate of the 3-member United Nations Commission of Inquiry into the assassination of former Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has formally begun today, a U.N. spokesman said. Spokesman Farhan Haq said that the members of the commission will arrive some times next week to start their work. They will spend a week or so at U.N. Headquarters in New York holding consultations and studying relevant documents ahead of their departure for Pakistan.
The commission is led by Chile’s U.N. Ambassador Heraldo Munoz, a dissident during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet who heads the U.N. Peace-building Commission.
The other members are former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman, who is now a member of the National Commission of Human Rights, and Ireland’s former deputy police commissioner Peter Fitzgerald, who has served the U.N. in a number of capacities including heading the initial mission of inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.
Under terms agreed to by the U.N. and the Pakistani government, the commission’s mandate will be “to inquire into the facts and circumstances” of her death, according to the official statement made last week.
“The duty of determining criminal responsibility of the perpetrators of the assassination remains with the Pakistani authorities,” it said.
The commission, which is expected leave for Islamabad in the middle of July, will submit its report to the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon within six months of the start of its work.
Ban will share the report with the Government and submit it to the Security Council for information.
According to informed sources, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, which will be the focal point for the commission, has been asked to provide English translations of the Urdu documents of the investigation conducted so far.
The FIR and the reports of local investigation agency are in Urdu. The sources said the commission is also expected to work on a list of witnesses to be called for interviews during their stay in Pakistan.
