Bhutto’s Sister-in-Law on Trial Over Husband’s Poison Death

The sister-in-law of Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto went on trial in absentia today accused of failing to save her husband from death by poison in the French resort of Cannes.

Shahnawaz Ali Bhutto, son of the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and brother of Pakistan’s new leader, died in 1985. His wife Rehana, an Afghan princess, found his body in their apartment. An autopsy showed that he died from poison.

Rehana Bhutto, 28, was arrested in October, 1985, and imprisoned for 50 days before being released on bail. She was cleared of willful murder charges last year.

She is accused of failing to help a person in danger, a charge that carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Prosecutors say she must have ignored groans and cries of distress made by her husband as he died of poisoning.

Rehana Bhutto was not present at the trial and her lawyer said she would not leave her home in the United States to attend.

Shahnawaz, a political activist who was 28 when he died, was the youngest son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani leader overthrown in 1977 by Gen. Zia ul-Haq and hanged in 1979 after being convicted of a political murder.

Benazir Bhutto says her brother was killed on Zia’s orders, possibly with his wife’s knowledge.

Rehana Bhutto says her husband committed suicide.