Pak asked UN to probe Bhutto's murder to stay clear of accusations: Zardari

Islamabad, July 17 (ANI): Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that his government had requested for an independent UN probe into late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination because it didn't want to face any accusation of bias in the future.

"We approached the UN because firstly we wanted transparent and above board investigations so that there were no accusations of bias. We also wanted to unearth a conspiracy to balkanise Pakistan and let the world know how a democratic leader heroically laid down her life to foil the designs against the country and thereby to honour her internationally," The News quoted Zardari, as saying.

On Thursday, a three-member UN Inquiry Commission arrived in Islamabad and met Zardari to begin a sixth-month investigation on Bhutto's killing.

The UN probe team included Chilean Ambassador to UN Heraldo Munoz, former attorney general of Indonesia Marzuki Darusman, and a veteran of the Irish National Police Peter Fitzgerald.

Apart from Zardari, the UN delegation also met Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari and Assefa Bhutto Zardari.

Zardari's spokesman Farhatullah Babar quoted him, as saying that the conspirators had planned to postpone elections indefinitely and to provoke the PPP workers to take to the streets on that fateful day to hasten the process of balkanisation.

"The president said the PPP took the conscious decision by seeking revenge in a different way as the party's new Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari declared, 'Democracy is the best revenge'," Babar said.

Babar added that the UN probe will be restricted to fact-finding in nature, to determine the facts and circumstances of the assassination and that it would not carry out a criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik handed over the report prepared by Scotland Yard, FIA and its sister intelligence agencies to the UN commission. (ANI)