Bhutto killed by blast, says Scotland Yard

Former leader's party says report was limited by available evidence

By Laura King

February 9, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - In findings similar to those of the Pakistani government, Scotland Yard investigators said yesterday that Benazir Bhutto was killed by a head injury resulting from the force of a suicide blast, not by shots fired toward her seconds earlier.

While the report did not address broader questions of culpability in Bhutto's death, the British investigators, who worked with Pakistani police, said for the first time that there was evidence that the gunman who fired at Bhutto was the person who triggered a powerful blast immediately afterward.

Initially, photographs and video footage of a shawl-wrapped man standing next to the gunman had caused investigators to theorize that there were two assailants.

The conclusions were sharply questioned by Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, which argued that the British investigators had too narrow a mandate and were hampered by a lack of crucial forensic evidence.

The findings were released at an emotionally fraught moment: the day after thousands of mourners marked the end of the chelhum, or 40-day mourning period after Bhutto's death.

The 54-year-old opposition leader was killed Dec. 27, moments after leaving a campaign rally at a park in Rawalpindi, near the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. She was riding in an armored vehicle but stood up to wave to supporters as she drove away, with her head and shoulders protruding through the roof's hatch.

The conclusions, released 10 days before crucial parliamentary elections, could heighten an already volatile atmosphere in advance of the vote. Bhutto had returned to Pakistan in October to lead her party in the elections, which were originally scheduled for Jan. 8 but were postponed after riots broke out in the assassination's aftermath.

The Scotland Yard team spent 2 1/2 weeks investigating the assassination after President Pervez Musharraf, under heavy domestic and international pressure, agreed to accept outside help. A poll taken weeks after the assassination indicated that nearly half the Pakistani public believed there was some form of complicity in the killing by elements of the government or security services.

The British investigators acknowledged they were limited in their inquiry by the lack of an autopsy and the loss of physical evidence when Pakistani authorities hosed down the bomb scene shortly after the attack.

"Nevertheless, the evidence that is available is sufficient for reliable conclusions to be drawn" regarding the cause of death, said the report, which was released by the British High Commission in Islamabad.

The report cited a pathologist from the British Home Office, Dr. Nathaniel Cary, as saying the only "tenable cause" of Bhutto's fatal injury was hitting her head on the lip of the escape hatch of her vehicle as she was propelled sideways by the force of the blast.

The investigators wrote that high explosives "typically used in this sort of device" would have detonated at a velocity of between 6,000 and 9,000 meters per second, generating "significantly more force than would be necessary" for the fatal blow to Bhutto's head.

The British team was tasked with looking at forensic and technical evidence, rather than tackling the larger question of who organized and financed the attack.

"The Scotland Yard terms of reference were very limited," said Sherry Rehman, a party spokeswoman who was with Bhutto on the night of the killing and said at the time that she believed the former prime minister had been shot. "We need to talk about the hidden hand as well."

The party repeated its call for a U.N. investigation - an appeal that has been rebuffed by Musharraf.

Pakistani officials emphasized that the findings regarding the cause of death did not mark the end of their own investigation.

Four people have been arrested in connection with Bhutto's killing, and the government has blamed Baitullah Mahsud, a pro-Taliban commander based in the tribal borderlands, for orchestrating the attack - a charge the militant leader has denied.