Scotland Yard said Friday that Pakistani former Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto was killed in a bomb blast, not gunshot.
A news conference is held in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and
the joint investigation team briefed reporters about the
investigation of Bhutto's death.
The Scotland Yard report concluded that an attacker fired shots
at Benazir Bhutto before detonating explosives on Dec. 27. The
attacker was just one to two meters away from Bhutto's vehicle and
he was not obstructed.
The report said the blast caused violent collision between
Bhutto's head and the escape hatch area of the vehicle. Benazir
Bhutto died as a result of severe head injuries.
The primary focus of the Scotland Yard team, which comprised 11
members, was to determine the cause of Bhutto's death.
The police arrested a suspect named Hussain Rafaqat who helped
the suicide bomber, the Additional Inspector of General Crime
Investigation Department Abdul Majeed said when addressing the news
conference.
Abdul Majeed said intelligence agencies provided useful
information to the probe.
However, the People's Party rejected the Scotland Yard report
and still believed Bhutto was killed by a gunshot, local TV channel
DAWN NEWS reported.
Benazir Bhutto was moving out of a park in Rawalpindi where she
addressed an election rally when an attacker fired shots and blew
himself up just a few paces away from Bhutto's vehicle. Bhutto was
injured in the attack and declared dead after being shifted to a
local hospital.
(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2008)