A retired member of An Garda Siochána will form part of a six-month UN inquiry into the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a spokeswoman said today.
Peter Fitzgerald, a former senior officer in the force, will take part in the inquiry headed up by Chile's UN ambassador Heraldo Munoz.
The other member of the UN "Bhutto Commission" is Indonesia's former attorney general Marzuki Darusman, UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said.
As previously announced, Ms Montas said the inquiry would not be empowered to launch criminal proceedings related to the assassination of Ms Bhutto, who was killed in a suicide attack in December 2007.
"The commission is not a tribunal," she told reporters.
That will make it much less far-reaching than a probe by the world body of the 2005 killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, which is intended to lead to a UN-organised trial in The Hague.
"The commission's mandate will be to inquire into the facts and circumstances of the assassination of former Prime Minister Bhutto," Ms Montas said. "The duty of determining criminal responsibility of the perpetrators of the assassination remains with the Pakistani authorities."
She said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would inform the UN Security Council of the results of the inquiry "for information" and that it would be up to the 15-nation body to decide what, if anything, it does with the outcome.
Pakistan will provide security for members of the commission, Ms Montas added.
Earlier investigations by Pakistan's previous government and the US Central Intelligence Agency accused an al Qaeda-linked militant of killing Bhutto, a staunch supporter of the US-led campaign against Islamist militancy.
Some of Ms Bhutto's aides have expressed dissatisfaction over those investigations.
Reuters