Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
| Benazir Bhutto assassination | |
|---|---|
| Location | Liaquat National Bagh, Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan |
| Date |
27 December 2007 [17:07 PST] |
| Target | Benazir Bhutto |
|
Attack type
|
Target killing Shooting Gun |
| Deaths | At least 24 |
27 December 2007
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto took place on 27 December 2007 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, twice Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988–1990; 1993–1996) and then-leader of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, had been campaigning ahead of elections scheduled for January 2008. Shots were fired at her after a political rally at Liaquat National Bagh, and a suicide bomb was detonated immediately following the shooting. She was declared dead at 18:16 local time (13:16 UTC), at Rawalpindi General Hospital. Twenty-four other people were killed by the bombing. Bhutto had previously survived a similar attempt on her life that killed at least 139 people, after her return from exile two months earlier.
Though early reports indicated that she had been hit by shrapnel or the gunshots, the Pakistani Interior Ministry initially stated that Bhutto died of a skull fracture sustained when the force of the explosion caused her head to strike the sunroof of the vehicle. Bhutto's aides rejected this version, and argued instead that she suffered two gunshots before the bomb detonation. The Interior Ministry subsequently backtracked from its previous claim.
In May 2007, Bhutto asked for additional protection from foreign contracting agencies Blackwater and the British firm Armor Group. The United Nations' investigation of the incident revealed that, "Ms. Bhutto's assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken."
Bhutto had opted for self-exile while her court cases for corruption remained pending in foreign and Pakistani courts. After eight years in exile in Dubai and London, Bhutto returned to Karachi on 18 October 2007 to prepare for the 2008 national elections, allowed by a possible power-sharing deal with President Pervez Musharraf.
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