[Facts] Bhutto's assassination

Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a suicide bomber on Dec. 27, 2007, plunging the nuclear-armed country into one of the worst crises in its 60-year history.

Bhutto Profile

* Benazir Bhutto was born on June 21, 1953, into a wealthy landowning family. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and was president and later prime minister of Pakistan from 1971 to 1977.

* After gaining degrees in politics at Harvard and Oxford universities, she returned to Pakistan in 1977, just before the military seized power from her father. She inherited the leadership of the PPP after her father's execution in 1979 under military ruler General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq.

* First voted in as prime minister in 1988, Bhutto was sacked by the president on corruption charges in 1990. She took power again in 1993 after her successor, Nawaz Sharif, was forced to resign after a row with the president. Bhutto was no more successful in her second spell as prime minister, and Sharif was back in power by 1996.

* In 1999, both Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, were sentenced to five years in jail and fined $8.6 million on charges of taking kickbacks from a Swiss company hired to fight customs fraud. A higher court later overturned the conviction as biased. Bhutto, who had made her husband investment minister during her period in office from 1993 to 1996, was abroad at the time of her conviction and chose not to return to Pakistan.

-- Geneva lawyers for Bhutto said last month they had lodged an appeal in a Swiss inquiry into alleged money laundering by Bhutto and her husband. The motion filed with Geneva's criminal appeals court could lead to hearings in the long-running case.

* In 2006 she joined an Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy with her arch-rival Sharif, but the two disagreed over strategy for dealing with military President Pervez Musharraf. Bhutto decided it was better to negotiate with Musharraf, while Sharif refused to have any dealings with the general.

* Bhutto returned home in October 2007 after Musharraf, with whom she had been negotiating over a transition to civilian-led democracy, granted her protection from prosecution in old corruption cases.

* On her return, as she was driving through Karachi, a suicide bomber struck, killing 139 supporters and members of her security team.

* On Dec. 26, Bhutto vowed to fight for workers' rights as she took her campaign for January general elections to an industrial belt near the capital.

* On Dec. 28, Bhutto was buried in the family mausoleum at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, a village in the southern province of Sindh.

Family history

* Bhutto came from a powerful political dynasty and said after she returned home from exile in October she might be assassinated.

* Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, became the country's first popularly elected prime minister but was toppled by the military in 1977 and later hanged for the murder of a political opponent. His supporters said the charge was trumped up by a military dictator.

* Both of his sons died in unexplained circumstances. Shahnawaz Bhutto, the younger son, was found dead in his flat on the French Riviera in 1985. Benazir said her brother was poisoned. The older son, Murtaza, was killed along with six supporters after a confrontation with police in Karachi in 1996. His family says it was a targeted killing.

* Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's bed-ridden wife, Nusrat, and an apolitical daughter, Sanam, are the only survivors of the family.

* Benazir Bhutto was lucky to survive when a suicide bomber killed nearly 150 people in an attack on her motorcade as she returned to the country in October after eight years in exile.

* Later that month, she paid an emotional return to her father's grave in their ancestral village in southern Pakistan. "There is still danger of attack, but Allah can protect everyone and I am not scared," she said.

* In a family interview with India's Outlook magazine in Dubai last year, Benazir said she hoped her three children would choose a different career. "My children have told me they are very worried about my safety. I understand those fears. But they are Bhuttos and we have to face the future with courage, whatever it brings."

Killing Controversy

Two Pakistani inquiries are investigating the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Following are the main points of controversy in her death:


Who ordered the attack?

* The government says Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani militant linked to al Qaeda, ordered the assassination. A spokesman for Mehsud, who is based on the Afghan border, denied involvement.

* Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party rejects the government's version. It says the authorities are trying to cover up their failure to provide security, and suggests that she was killed by other, unidentified enemies.


Who carried out the attack?

* Investigators have reconstructed a mangled head, apparently that of the bomber, found at the scene of the attack along with severed fingers. DNA tests are being done to see if they belong to the same person.

* Pakistan's Dawn News Television has broadcast grainy still pictures of what it said appeared to be two attackers.

One is a clean-cut young man wearing sunglasses, white shirt and dark waistcoat. Behind him stands a man with a white shawl over his head, who Dawn said was believed to be the bomber. Two photographs show the clean-cut man pointing a pistol at Bhutto.

Officials have declined to say how many attackers they think were involved.


How did Bhutto die?

* The government says three shots were fired at Bhutto as she left an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi. But, citing a medical report, it says she was killed when a blast set off moments later by a suicide bomber smashed her head into a lever on the sunroof of her bullet-proof vehicle as she ducked down.

* The PPP says this is "ludicrous", and that she was killed by a bullet to the head.


Who is investigating?

* The government has ordered two separate investigations -- one by police and security services, and one by the judiciary.

* Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who was appointed co-chairman of her party on Sunday, said the party wanted the United Nations to investigate.