‘Zardari tampered with evidence of Benazir assassination’

KARACHI - A close relative of slain Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto has accused her widower President Asif Ali Zardari of tampering with evidence relating to the assassination.

Mumtaz Bhutto, a cousin of Benazir’s father and former president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, made the remarks while speaking to reporters in Tandojam, in Sindh’s Hyderabad’s district.

He also lamented that two years after the assassination, neither had the killers been arrested nor had a case been registered.

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and bomb attack Dec 27, 2007 as she left a political rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi adjacent to federal capital Islamabad.

Investigations by Pakistani authorities, as also Scotland Yard, failed to make any headway into the killing. A specially-appointed UN team is currently conducting a probe but is unlikely to unearth very much as the assassination site was washed clean soon after the incident, destroying whatever evidence might have existed.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mumtaz Bhutto had, in March 1967, jointly founded the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) that currently leads the ruling federal coalition.

Mumtaz Bhutto, who has served as the governor and chief minister of Sindh, had in 1989 floated the Sindh National Front. He has been a vocal critic of Zardari, accusing him of corruption and usurping the PPP by using the Bhutto family name to acquire power.