A volatile career - peaks of promise ultimately blighted by family and fate

Nearly 20 years ago, as she became the first woman elected to head a Muslim state, Benazir Bhutto was feted as a glamorous feminist symbol of modernity. She was only 35. People magazine included her among its Fifty Most Beautiful People.

A decade later she was mired in corruption scandals, and left friendless. As she recalled from exile this year: "There were days when no one wanted to see us or talk to us." Then, in another dramatic twist in her volatile career, she was nurtured in Washington and London as the best hope for a restoration of democracy, to bring an element of legitimacy to President Musharraf's "war on terror".

Mistrusted by the army and the powerful intelligence services, and reviled by Pakistan's Islamist clerics and parties, she knew the dangers she faced when she returned in October to broker a controversial deal which might have seen her elected as prime minister in the new year, for the third time.

After Pakistani security forces stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July, killing more than 100 militant students, she remarked: "There will be a backlash, but some time we have to stop appeasing the militants." Just before her return from her exile in Dubai she clearly foresaw her own fate, telling the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper: "They might try and assassinate me. I have prepared my family and my loved ones for any possibility."

The backlash, threatened by Islamist elements, started sooner than she anticipated. On the day she landed, her celebration convoy was attacked by suicide bombers leaving nearly 150 dead and hundreds injured. Yesterday was, for many observers, a tragedy waiting in the wings.

Bhutto was born in Karachi in 1953, into a wealthy landowning family which became one of the world's most recognisable political dynasties. Her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became the country's first democratically elected leader.

The eldest of four children, she was educated at Roman Catholic mission schools in Karachi before going on to Harvard University and Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford where she completed a course in international law and diplomacy. In 1976, amid intense media interest, she was elected president of the Oxford Union, becoming the first Asian woman to head the debating society.

Her gilded youth was soon to be marked by the first of several family traumas. Overthrown in a coup by the army chief General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, her father was executed in 1979 after a dubious trial on charges of conspiracy to murder a political dissident. In 1980 her brother Shahnawaz was killed in mysterious circumstances in his apartment on the French Riviera.

For five years, she and her mother were in and out of prison, much of the time in solitary confinement, until she was allowed to go abroad for medical treatment in 1984. She returned in 1986 to an ecstatic reception from her followers to launch a campaign against military rule.

In 1988, Zia was killed in an air crash and in the elections that year her party, the Pakistan People's party, won the largest bloc of seats in the national assembly. With power came allegations that she and her husband had stolen millions. After only 20 months in office she was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan on charges of corruption. In 1993 she was re-elected and again dismissed three years later, this time by President Farooq Leghari, on similar charges.

Just before she was ousted the family suffered a further violent blow. Bhutto's other brother, Murtaza, who had returned to Pakistan after 15 years in exile building up a militant group to avenge his father's death, was killed in an encounter with the police.

Critics have argued that Bhutto's two administrations were long on rhetoric and short on delivery. Although her election campaigns were full of promises about the role and welfare of women, there was little legislative action, partly because of entrenched opposition from religious and feudal forces, particularly the ultra rightwing party, Jamaat-e-Islami.

One American historian described her as "one of the most incompetent leaders in the history of south Asia". During her second tenure the Taliban took power in Afghanistan with considerable sympathy and support from the dark forces of Pakistan's body politic - the Army's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.

But it was the allegations of corruption that left an indelible stain. She claimed they were politically motivated. They began at the beginning of her political career in 1987 when she married the businessman Asif Ali Zardari. He played a prominent role in both her administrations and won himself a reputation as Mr 10 Percent for a variety of imaginative kickback enterprises that led to still-ongoing money laundering proceedings in Switzerland and Spain.

In 1999, Bhutto and her husband were sentenced to five years in jail and fined $8.6m (£4.3m) on charges of taking kickbacks from a Swiss company hired to fight customs fraud. A higher court later overturned the conviction as biased. Bhutto was abroad at the time of her conviction and chose not to return to Pakistan. Asif spent eight years in prison before being released on bail in 2004.

Bhutto stayed in self-imposed exile in Dubai with her three children - Bilawal, Bakhtwar and Aseefa - and her mother who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. These were the years of isolation. Largely snubbed by senior politicians, she was a regular visitor to western capitals where her elegant and charismatic presence still had purchase with the university and thinktank speaking circuit.

In 2006 her road to rehabilitation began. She joined the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy with her arch-rival Nawaz Sharif, then living in Saudi Arabia. On January 27 2007 she was invited by the United States to speak to President Bush and congressional and state department officials. Washington was concerned that Musharraf's insistence on holding presidential elections while remaining as commander-in-chief would make a mockery of his claim to have a democratic mandate.

With American blessing, a deal was hatched. Bhutto was given immunity from prosecution on the corruption charges and Musharraf would relinquish his uniform - but only after kicking out the senior judges and chief justice who tried to block him standing for election again. The expectation was that he would remain as civilian president and she would be prime minister.

Just like in 1986, her return in October was greeted by her supporters like the second coming. After the carnage of the first day she took to the campaign trail with gusto, but knowing all the time that there were those close at hand plotting her final elimination.

Tributes

"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy. Ms Bhutto served her nation twice as prime minister, and she knew that her return to Pakistan put her life at risk. Yet she refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country. We stand with the people of Pakistan. We urge them to honour Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life."President George Bush

"Benazir Bhutto was a woman of immense personal courage and bravery. Knowing as she did the threats to her life, and the previous attempt at assassination, she risked everything in her attempt to win democracy in Pakistan. She has been assassinated by cowards afraid of democracy."Gordon Brown

"In her death, the subcontinent has lost an outstanding leader who worked for democracy and reconciliation in her country."Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh

"It is not a sad day, it is a dark, darkest, gloomiest day in the history of this country. Something unthinkable has happened. Something inconceivable, unthinkable has happened."Pakistan opposition leader Nawaz Sharif

"Benazir Bhutto has been a personal friend for many years. Her murder by extremists is a body blow for freedom and democracy in Pakistan. My prayers are for her husband, children and family, that they will be comforted at this time of grief."Rt Rev Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester

"She was fiery, determined and a whirlwind of energy. I recently told her she was going to get blown up but she said: 'Democracy only works if people like me meet people who are voting.'"Alan Duncan MP, who ran her campaign to become president of the Oxford Union in 1977

"She wasn't someone who was buried away in a library. She used to go socialising, she had a lot of friends. In later years it was those friendships she thought back to, because it was a very happy period for her."Victoria Schofield, a friend from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, who wrote about the trial and execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father

"She was a fantastic mother. I don't know how she balanced things but she did. She had an enormous sense of humour, completely eloquent and witty."Cleo Rocos, actor and friend