UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has accepted an urgent request from Pakistan to delay presentation of a U.N. report on the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the world body said on Tuesday.
The report on a nine-month inquiry by a three-person U.N. panel, was originally due to be presented by Wednesday, but Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari requested it be delayed until April 15, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
Nesirky gave no reason for the Pakistani request.
The panel, headed by Chile's U.N. Ambassador Heraldo Munoz, looked into the circumstances surrounding the attack that killed Bhutto after an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi city on Dec. 27, 2007.
Nesirky told reporters that the report was completed and was ready for delivery. But he said neither Secretary-General Ban nor the Pakistani government had seen it.
Ban set up the panel at the request of Pakistan's coalition government, led by Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.
The previous government, headed by allies of former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf, blamed then Pakistani Taliban leader and al Qaeda ally Baitullah Mehsud for Bhutto's murder. Mehsud was killed in a U.S. drone strike last August.
Reporting by Patrick Worsnip; Editing by Stacey Joyce
Reuters India
