Scotland Yard team probing Bhutto's killing faces tough task

ISLAMABAD: Scotland Yard sleuths helping Pakistani authorities in the probe into the killing of former premier Benazir Bhutto are expected to face an uphill task as vital forensic evidence at the scene of the attack on her has already been destroyed.

The five-member team from the British Metropolitan Police's Counter-Terrorism Command last night examined the armoured Toyota Land Cruiser in which Bhutto was traveling when she was attacked by a gunman and a suicide bomber after an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27.

The Scotland Yard team took photos of the bomb-damaged vehicle, especially of the damage caused by splinters from the suicide bomber's explosive device, at the police lines in Rawalpindi, said district nazim Raja Javed Ikhlas. The vehicle has been impounded by police and declared a "case property".
   
The team will visit the site at Liaquat Bagh where Bhutto was attacked and the Rawalpindi General Hospital, where she was taken after the attack, to record statements of doctors who tried to save her. It is also expected to record statements of some persons who were injured in the suicide attack.
   
However, analysts said the British team would face difficulties because of the lack of forensic evidence. Police had not cordoned off the assassination site, which has become almost a public memorial for Bhutto. The area was also washed hours after the incident an act that has been criticised by even President Pervez Musharraf.

Analysts said the team would also face difficulties because no autopsy was conducted on Bhutto's body at the request of her husband Asif Ali Zardari. The government has offered to exhume the body, but her family appears reluctant to allow this.

British High Commission spokesman Aidan Liddle said the Scotland Yard team will be "part of the Pakistani probe" and will not function independently.
   
"The five experts from the Counter-Terrorism Command will offer support and expertise, mainly forensic expertise," Liddle told.

Though the team's deployment in Pakistan is "not open-ended", British authorities have not set any timeframe for how long the investigators would remain in the country, Liddle said.
   
The British team was also briefed on Friday by Pakistani police detectives and officials of the Special Investigation Group, the anti-terror wing of the Federal Investigation Agency, on the status of the investigations by Pakistani authorities.

Meanwhile, district nazim Ikhas said a detailed report regarding security arrangements made by the Rawalpindi city administration for Bhutto during her rally in Liaquat Bagh has been submitted to President Musharraf.
   
The report clarifies the actual position and makes "it clear that there have been no security lapses regarding the protection of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto", Ikhlas said.
   
The report has held the personal security staff of Bhutto, including her security advisor Rehman Malik and a police officer of the rank of SSP, and other persons sitting in her bulletproof vehicle responsible for not stopping her from coming out of the sun-roof to wave to her supporters.

Bhutto was attacked when she emerged from the sun-roof. Musharraf too said during an interaction with reporters on Thursday that Bhutto had thrown caution to the wind and gone to Liaquat Bagh despite being alerted about threats to her life.
   
The Pakistan government has said it will give "complete freedom" to the British team to conduct its investigation. Caretaker Home Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan said, "We will let them work as they want to work.
   
"They will not have to share their investigation with us. We will give them all the help they need. They can help us in forensics and reconstructing the scene of the crime," Khan said last night.
   
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has already rejected the government decision to get the assassination probed by British police.
   
"We will accept an investigation of the tragic incident by international experts only if it is conducted under the auspices of the United Nations," PPP co-chairman Zardari has said.