Updated on Monday, April 21, 2008, 00:00 IST

Islamabad, April 21: Slain former Pakistani Premier Benazir Bhutto, who purchased a "jinxed" house in New York from an American columnist, was a strong believer of Feng Shui and planned to change the location of the entry doors, the former house owner has said.

Bhutto had bought a "jinxed apartment" from columnist Seema Boesky a year before she was assassinated in December and had told her that Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese tradition of placement and design that guides human being living harmoniously with their environment, was very important to her and it was not right in that house.

"The Feng Shui is not right here and is very important to me, so I will be changing the location of the entry doors," Bhutto was quoted as saying by Boesky in her column for the April issue of "The Wag" magazine.

"I wondered could Feng Shui account for my apartment's bad luck? She made a list of items she wanted, mostly 18th-century antiques, and asked for prices," Boesky said in the column where she wrote about her "cursed apartment" which she had been trying to sell but was not able to till she met Bhutto.

"My first buyer dropped dead at the closing. The second, with contract in hand, bolted down 47 flights of stairs, never to be heard from again. Why? My building is the one New York Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle flew an airplane into, tragically crashing it five floors below my apartment where my buyer was signing our contract," wrote Boesky, the ex-wife of former Wall Street broker Ivan Boesky who was jailed for insider trading.

Boesky described her "cursed" New York "penthouse" as "pristine, beautifully furnished" and with "panoramic views overlooking the East River".

Bureau Report