December 27 in History
2007 – Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated
Benazir Bhutto, twice Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988–1990; 1993–1996) and then-leader of the opposition Pakistan Peoples’ Party, had been campaigning in Rawalpindi ahead of elections scheduled for January 2008. Shots were fired at her after a political rally at Liaqat 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-three other people were killed by the bombing. Bhutto had previously survived a similar attempt on her life (the 2007 Karsaz bombing) that killed at least 180 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 ArmorGroup. The United Nations’ investigation of the incident revealed that, “Ms. Bhutto’s assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken.”
-Wikipedia