Benazir Bhutto biography
Updated on 27 December 2007
Benazir Bhutto was born in Karachi on June 21 1953.
She studied in Pakistan before continuing her education at Harvard and Oxford Universities.
In December 1976, she was elected president of the Oxford Union becoming the first Asian woman to head the debating society.
Her father, former Prime Minister Zulfakir Ali Bhutto was dismissed from power in 1975. In 1977, he was put on trial on charges for conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to death. He was hanged in April 1979.
Bhutto's two brothers also suffered violent deaths. Her brother Shahnawaz was found dead in his apartment in France in 1985. Her other brother Murtaza was shot dead under mysterious circumstances in 1996.
She became leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in exile.
In an open election in 1988, the PPP won the largest number of seats in the National Assembly. Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as Prime Minister of a coalition government. She became the first woman to lead a modern Islamic nation.
Bhutto's government was dismissed in 1990 following charges of corruption. She was re-elected in 1993 but was dismissed three years later amid allegations of corruption.
Following these events, Benazir Bhutto lived in the UK and Dubai in exile until she declared her intention to return to Pakistan in autumn 2007.
In October 2007, around 130 people were killed in a suicide attack on her cavalcade but she was not injured.
