'Rawalpindi police chief was against autopsy on Bhutto's body'

ISLAMABAD: The decision not to conduct an autopsy on slain ex-premier Benazir Bhutto's body was taken by the Rawalpindi police chief even though a medico-legal report based on a mandatory post-mortem examination is a must in a murder case under Pakistani laws.
   
"Even if the family of a murder victim refuses to allow the autopsy, no investigation can be completed if doctors do not perform the autopsy and conclusively find the cause of death," said Athar Minallah, a top lawyer and a member of the board of management of Rawalpindi General Hospital where Bhutto was taken after the attack on her on Thursday.
   
He said doctors, who treated Bhutto, had told him that they wanted to conduct the autopsy but the Rawalpindi Police chief had not agreed to this.
   
"The doctors were worried that their initial report, which did not determine the definite cause of death, is being politically twisted," he told 'The News'.
   
Minallah's statement runs contrary to the contention of Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema, who had said on Friday that the autopsy was not done at the request of Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari.
   
Cheema said the doctors had performed only an "external post-mortem" using X-rays while Minallah argued that avoiding the mandatory autopsy on the body of Bhutto "was a violation of the Criminal Procedure Code."
   
The doctors, who treated Bhutto, had only written a "treatment report".
   
This three-page report, in a one line finding on the cause of death, states: "Open head injury with depressed skull fracture, leading to cardiopulmonary arrest."
   
Minallah said this conclusion does not say what caused the "open head injury" and it could have been caused by "a bullet, shrapnel or a lever of the car".
   
"Only the medico-legal report, based on the autopsy, could determine whether a bullet hit the head," he said.
   
A man fired three to four shots at Bhutto shortly after she addressed an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27.

A suicide bomber then blew himself up near her bulletproof vehicle and she was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital, where doctors declared her dead after failing to resuscitate her.
   
A huge controversy has erupted over the cause of her death following varying accounts from the PPP and the government. PPP leaders initially said she was shot in the neck and chest.
   
Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan said on Friday she was struck in the head by shrapnel from the bomb, while Cheema said hours later that she died due to injuries sustained when she hit her head on a metal lever on the sun-roof of her vehicle.
   
Bhutto's aide and PPP spokesperson Sherry Rehman, who was with her at the time of the attack, has, however, insisted that Bhutto was shot in the head.