By DPA
Islamabad : Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf urged British investigators Tuesday to reach conclusions on the death of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto “as soon as possible,” a presidential spokesman said.
A meeting Tuesday between Musharraf and the five-member team from London’s Metropolitan Police Service Counter-terrorism Command was their first since the team’s arrival Friday and was described as a courtesy call.
“The president thanked the British government for responding immediately to Pakistan’s request and sending the team,” presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi said, “and he asked them to do whatever possible to solve the case as soon as possible.”
Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, continued to demand a UN inquiry into her assassination because Scotland Yard is only providing forensic and technical assistance and not doing its own investigation. He declined a request for an autopsy on Bhutto and has ruled out exhuming her body.
A senior police official who was injured in the suicide bombing told Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper from his hospital bed that he saw a man firing a handgun at Bhutto from close range before the explosion. His description of the attacker matched images telecast in the days following the assassination.
Musharraf and his government are under close scrutiny given the brazen gun-suicide bombing attack on Bhutto on Dec 27 and conflicting statements from officials about how she died.
In recent days, Musharraf has contradicted his own interior ministry by saying it was possible Bhutto was killed by bullets rather than by banging her head on the sunroof of her vehicle after the explosion, as some officials have contended.
Musharraf told foreign journalists last week that he agreed to allow the police from Scotland Yard to join the Pakistani investigation because he “was not fully satisfied” with the government’s conclusions, which were met with massive scepticism from the public, Bhutto’s family and political party.