Benazir Bhutto: Oxford party girl cursed by blood-soaked family dynasty

By RICHARD PENDLEBURY

Last updated at 11:59 28 December 2007


She was glamorous, clever and undeniably brave, though to her many critics she was also "the diva of corruption".

As a jet- setting, western- educated woman and a democrat, Benazir Bhutto was certainly an affront to the radical Islamists who prefer bombs to ballot boxes. But there were other, powerful enemies too.

And yesterday the former prime minister of Pakistan paid the ultimate price for pursuing her family's already blood-soaked political ambitions.

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Bhutto then and now

The clocks of her alma mater Oxford University, where she once threw the best parties and drove a yellow MG, had just struck a quarter past one when Miss Bhutto succumbed to her injuries in a Rawalpindi hospital.

With her, for the time being at least, died the dynastic ambitions of a family which has dominated Pakistani politics for decades, in the way that the Kennedys and Nehru-Gandhis bestrode the United States and India.

And like those other clans, power for the Bhuttos came hand in hand with tragedy. Benazir's father and two brothers were all killed.

She is survived by her three children and husband Asif Ali Zardari, who was known as "Mr Ten Per Cent" for the allegedly corrupt deals he cut while serving in his wife's governments.

Miss Bhutto was born to privilege and political influence. Her grandfather was Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, one of the highestranking politicians during the British Raj.

The Bhuttos continued to thrive post-partition. Benazir's father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the Pakistani foreign minister before being elected as head of government in 1971.

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Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari

By then, "Pinky" as Benazir was known to family and friends, was a thoroughly westernised teenager, living a life of "idyllic ease".

Though Muslim, she was educated in Pakistan by an English governess and Catholic nuns before, aged 16, being sent to study politics at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachussetts.

That was hard for her at first, she admitted, because it was so cold and, without a chauffeur, she had to walk to school for the first time.

Still, she dressed in clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue and enjoyed a lifestyle similar to that of any spoiled daughter of a wealthy foreign potentate.

When Benazir graduated she went to Oxford to study international law and politics. Her ambition was to enter the Pakistani diplomatic service.

Her parties at Oxford were always well attended and liberally supplied with alcohol. Although she later denied it, Benazir loved to dance at these events, which would have been considered scandalous back home given that both sexes were present.

A contemporary recalls: "Her Oxford lifestyle was almost a parody of the rich Islamic girl released from the constraints of a rigid Muslim home. Stories of her exotic love life abounded.

"When she stood for the presidency of the Oxford Union, she skilfully used the rumours about her un-Islamic activities to flutter her eyelashes at the male voters.

"At the same time she rallied the feminists with the suggestion that she would be held back by the male chauvinists and reactionaries - even though they were the kind of men with whom she enjoyed her leisure time."

At her first attempt for the presidency Bhutto came third. But after graduating in 1976 with a second in politics, philosophy and economics she stood again and won. She was the first Asian female to hold the position in the Union's history.

When her term ended in 1977 she returned to Pakistan after eight years living away. By then her prime minister father's rule was in crisis.

The end came when soldiers, following the orders of the army commander General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, stormed the Bhutto family residence one morning.

Martial law was imposed and Bhutto senior was charged with plotting to kill a political rival. In spite of an international outcry he was hanged in 1979, in Rawalpindi.

A few months later Benazir, who with her mother had taken over the leadership of her father's Pakistan People's Party, was charged with offences under martial law.

She spent much of the next six years in solitary confinement in sweltering prisons or under house arrest.

Her health failing, she was eventually allowed to seek medical treatment in England, where she lived in exile until her return in 1986, when two million lined the streets of Lahore to greet her.

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Bhutto family

A warning of the dangerous game she played was fresh in her mind: her brother Shahnawazhad had been found poisoned in his Cannes flat the previous year. The killer was never caught, though political motives were suspected.

After General Zia was killed in an air crash, Miss Bhutto stood for prime minister. By now she was an icon both in Pakistan and the West.

Her opponents lambasted her as a stooge of America and a "gangster in bangles". There were assassination plots too.

But after all the ballyhoo and a historic victory, her first term in office was a grave disappointment.

In spite of her promises to improve the lives of the poor, little was achieved and in 1990 she was sacked by the president amid allegations of corruption. Many of the claims surrounded the activities of her husband, who was arrested and investigated.

It was deeply humiliating. But Miss Bhutto regrouped and in 1993 was elected again.

Once again Zardari, her investment minister as well as husband, was at the centre of sleaze allegations.

It was claimed that he had earned millions in illegal commission for brokering government deals on goods ranging from jet fighters to gold, and after three years in office Bhutto's government was again dismissed in disgrace.

By then the former cricketer Imran Khan, a contemporary at Oxford, had become one of her sternest critics.

Shortly after the Bhutto government fell he told a rally: "The bowler has taken the first wicket, and you know whose wicket that was - Asif Ali Zardari, who holds the world championship for corruption.

"And the second wicket to fall was that of Benazir Bhutto, the world champion in telling lies, who has a shawl on her head, prayer beads in her hands, and thievery in her heart."

When the cheers died down, he added: "Now, if you will let me be the bowler, and you take the catches, we can bowl them all out and rid Pakistan of this political mafia."

Zardari was arrested once again. This time he spent eight years in jail being investigated, though never successfully prosecuted, on a variety of charges, including complicity in the shooting of his wife's estranged activist brother Murzata Bhutto.

Documents were produced which showed that the family had secret bank accounts and offshore companies in the Isle of Man and Switzerland, and Miss Bhutto was accused of money laundering. In 2003 a Swiss court found her guilty and she was given a six-month suspended jail sentence.

Her £4.5million ten-bedroomed mansion and country estate near Godalming in Surrey was bought with the proceeds of her corruption, Pakistani prosecutors alleged. They launched court proceedings in the Isle of Man to recover some £ 750million.

Miss Bhutto denied all charges.

Nevertheless, she left Pakistan for London in 1999 shortly before fresh court proceedings and remained abroad, eventually settling with her three children in Dubai. Her husband, who has always protested his innocence, was allowed to join them in 2004.

After the 9/11 attacks in America in 2001 the political faultlines in Pakistan shifted once again, and in October this year Miss Bhutto and her husband were granted amnesty on the outstanding criminal allegations against them in Pakistan.

President Musharraf allowed Miss Bhutto to make a triumphant homecoming and prepare for next year's national elections.

Her political momentum was building. But within hours of her return a suicide bomb attack narrowly failed to assassinate her, killing more than 130 people in and around her bus in Karachi.

Yesterday there was no such miraculous escape for this remarkable, if flawed, woman.

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