Updated on
Summary
The members of an independent commission tasked with looking into the facts and circumstances surrounding the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto have begun to assemble to begin their work. For the next two weeks, the three commission members will have a round of briefings at UN Headquarters in New York and start studying relevant documents and papers ahead of their departure to Pakistan. The commission is led by Chiles 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 Irelands 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 commissions 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.
