Islamabad, Feb 8, IRNA,British police on Friday said in its report that former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was not hit by bullet but was killed by the force of a suicide bomb.
The report backed the Pakistani government’s stand that Bhutto was not hit by bullets.
The Peoples Party of Benazir Bhutto disagreed with the Scotland Yard report and insisted that she was hit by bullets.
“The only tenable cause for the rapidly fatal head injury in this case is that it occurred as the result of impact due to the effects of the bomb-blast,” the report said.
“In my opinion Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto died as a result of a severe head injury sustained as a consequence of the bomb-blast and due to head impact somewhere in the escape hatch of the vehicle,” UK Home Office pathologist, Dr Nathaniel Cary, who has been consulted in this case, said in the report.
According to the report the attacker was lone, who fired shots and later exploded himself up near the vehicle of Benazir Bhutto.
“In essence, all the evidence indicates that one suspect has fired the shots before detonating an improvised explosive device,” said the 5-page summary of the 70-page report, released by Deputy Inspector General Police Chaudhry Abdul Majeed at a press conference.
The report said that a lone attacker fired at Benazir Bhutto as she waved to supporters after a huge election public meeting in Rawalpindi on December 27 — and then blew himself which caused her head to fatally smash against her car.
Peoples Party spokesperson Sherry Rehman rejected Scotland Yard findings and said Bhutto was hit by bullet.
Sherry Rehman, who was with Benazir Bhutto in the car at the time of the attack, said the party still wants inquiry through the United Nations.
“The blast caused a violent collision between her head and the escape hatch area of the vehicle, causing a severe and fatal head injury,” added the report, signed by British Detective Superintendent John MacBrayne.
Abdul Majeed said that the British team of forensics and other experts spent two and a half weeks in Pakistan in January at the invitation of President Pervez Musharraf, who had requested British police probe to remove controversy over the circumstances of Benazir Bhutto’s death.
The government was quick to shift blame to Taliban-linked Pakistani militant Baitullah Mehsood, the charge denied by his spokesman Maulvi Umar.
The British team said, “lack of an extended and detailed search of the crime scene, the absence of an autopsy, and the absence of recognised body recovery and victim identification processes.” But it said there was sufficient evidence to draw “reliable conclusions”, including X-rays checked against Bhutto’s dental records and video footage taken by witnesses.
“The only tenable cause for the rapidly fatal head injury in this case is that it occurred as the result of impact due to the effects of the bomb-blast,” the report quoted British Home Department pathologist Nathaniel Cary as saying.