Pakistan officially asks UN to probe Bhutto slaying

UNITED NATIONS, Saturday (AFP) - Pakistan's new government has officially asked the United Nations to investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last December, UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said. She said the request was contained in a letter from Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi delivered to UN chief Ban Ki-moon by the Pakistani ambassador here Friday.

"The Secretary General has not taken a decision on it yet. He has just received the letter and the letter is being studied," she added. The UN has already hinted that the request was unlikely to be approved, notably because no foreign country is suspected of involvement in the Bhutto murder.

UN sources also say the cost of such a probe would be prohibitively expensive for uncertain results, six months after the slaying. Former premier Bhutto was slain in a suicide and gun attack at an election rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on December 27, triggering days of deadly riots across the country. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf blamed an al-Qaeda-linked militant for the attack and refused to seek a UN probe. A coalition led by Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) trounced Musharraf's allies in general elections in February.

Bhutto's supporters have cast doubt on the Pakistani probe into her death, questioning whether she was killed by a gunshot or the blast and criticising authorities for hosing down the scene of the attack within minutes.

That probe concluded that a lone attacker fired shots at Bhutto before detonating explosives, but said that bullets were not the cause of death.