Former colleagues, friends and students attended a memorial debate by the prestigious Oxford Union debating society on Thursday, in honour of assassinated Benazir Bhutto.

Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Bhutto is an Oxford University alumni and was President of the Oxford Union in 1977, the first Asian woman to hold the post, according to the group's website.

Amongst those in attendance at the memorial debate was her son, 19-year-old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, himself in his first year of studies at Oxford University.

In the wake of his mother's death he was chosen as her successor as leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), though day-to-day leadership was to stay in the hands of his father, Asif Ali Zardari.

Zardari listened as former friends of his mother recalled her time at the Union.
''She (Benazir Bhutto) was amazingly firey and fun. Standing at this dispatch box she would enliven this chamber,'' said Alan Duncan, currently a member of British Parliament.

Faced with intense international media scrutiny, Zardari has pleaded for privacy as he pursues his studies at Oxford. He did not participate in the debate.

Suspected Islamic militants launched a gun and suicide bomb attack on Bhutto as she left a rally on 27 December 2007 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Her death triggered riots that forced a six-week delay in the parliamentary polls, which are now scheduled for February 18 2008.