Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was president and then prime minister of Pakistan, founded the Pakistan People's Party, and was hanged by the general he had promoted. He was a Sindhi landowner's son educated at Berkeley and Oxford and called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. As foreign minister under Ayub Khan he pushed the confrontation with India that became the 1965 war, resigned over the peace terms, and founded the PPP in 1967 on a platform of Islamic socialism. He took power in December 1971 with the country halved: East Pakistan had become Bangladesh, ninety thousand prisoners were in Indian hands, and the army was discredited. He negotiated their return at Simla, wrote a constitution that has survived in amended form, nationalised heavy industry and banks, and began the nuclear weapons programme, saying Pakistanis would eat grass if necessary. He also built up the paramilitary Federal Security Force and handled opponents roughly. After the disputed election of 1977 and the protests that followed, General Zia ul-Haq, whom Bhutto had promoted over more senior officers, took power. Bhutto was tried for conspiracy to murder a political opponent in proceedings widely regarded as directed to a verdict, and hanged in April 1979. His daughter Benazir twice became prime minister and was assassinated in 2007. Four of the nine judges who upheld his conviction dissented, and the case is still cited in Pakistan as judicial murder; the Supreme Court issued an opinion in 2024 acknowledging the trial had not been fair. His son Murtaza was shot dead by police in 1996 while Benazir was prime minister. The nuclear programme he began produced a weapon in 1998.

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