British investigators say Pakistan's Bhutto was not shot (Roundup)

Feb 8, 2008, 9:48 GMT

Islamabad - British investigators have concluded that Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto died after cracking her skull on the hatch of her vehicle during a December 27 attack, confirming government claims that she was not shot, officials said Friday.

An investigation team from Britain's Scotland Yard submitted a much-anticipated preliminary report on the assassination to Bhutto's family and the government Friday morning.

'Benazir Bhutto died of a severe head injury as a consequence of the bomb blast,' Abdul Majeed, head of the Pakistani police investigation team, said as he read the executive summary of the Scotland Yard report during a televised press conference.

'Such an explosion would generate more force than necessary to provoke the consequences of the case,' he said, adding that the blast velocity was between 6,000 and 9,000 metres per second.

Majeed said the British team concluded that the attacker had missed Bhutto with three shots from a handgun from less than 2 metres before detonating the bomb, which also killed 22 people.

Bhutto's family and aides who were with her in the vehicle claim she was shot in the head and chest in the attack. The two-time prime minister was buried the next day in following Muslim tradition and no autopsy was performed, further fueling the controversy.

Embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had sought the assistance of Britain after Bhutto's family and supporters rejected the government's claims that she was not shot and demanded an independent inquiry by the United Nations.

According to the British report, the only injury to Bhutto was major trauma to the right side of her head, which investigators ruled out as being from a gunshot wound, Majeed said.

The report concluded the injury was caused by the side of the armour-plated escape hatch - for weeks government officials referred to it as a sunroof - as Bhutto fell back into the vehicle after the blast.

However, television footage of the attack appeared to show Bhutto recoiling down into the vehicle just before the explosion - which her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) insists was due to a gunshot wound.

'We clearly saw even on footage that she recoiled from a bullet,' Sheri Rehman, information secretary of Bhutto's PPP, told DawnNews TV. 'This gives us all the more region to ask for a UN investigation' to find 'what is behind the hand that pulled the trigger.'

Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari has claimed that rogue elements of Musharraf's government were behind the assassination and not Islamic militants as the government has repeatedly claimed.

Musharraf, whose popularity is at an all-time low since seizing power in a bloodless coup in 1999, further angered Bhutto supporters by saying she was to blame for her own death because she had popped out of the escape hatch to greet cheering supporters along the road leading from the site of a campaign rally in the city of Rawalpindi.

While the exact cause of Bhutto's death may seem moot to outsiders, it was a major domestic issue in the days following her assassination, which shocked the country, sparked three days of nationwide rioting and forced the postponement of crucial parliamentary elections until February 18.

Government officials only worsened the situation by making conflicting statements in the wake of the attack, with Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz claiming on national television that the attacker did not have a gun, only to be contradicted a few hours later by a ministry spokesman.

The New York Times first reported the contents of the Scotland Yard report on Friday morning, sending the nation's media outlets into a scramble.

Bhutto's family has refused to give much weight to Scotland Yard, saying it was only working within the terms and references set by the Pakistani authorities that limited it to assisting in analyzing forensic evidence.

The Pakistani government has accused Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban commander in the country's tribal areas who is allegedly linked to al-Qaeda, of masterminding the gun and suicide bombing attack, as well as dozens of other suicide bombings against security forces in the past year.

On Thursday, officials announced the arrest of two men who they say assisted the bomber in planning the attack on Bhutto. Late last month, authorities arrested a would-be teenaged bomber, along with his handler, who reportedly confessed to being the next in line to attack Bhutto had she survived the Rawalpindi attack.

Both reportedly confessed to having links with Mehsud.