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Bhutto killed by blast, not bullets: Report

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Press Trust of India Islamabad
Last Updated : Jan 20 2013 | 8:30 PM IST
 Updated at 1230 hrs: Britain's Scotland Yard, which probed the assassination of former Pakistai Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, handed over a report on its findings to the Pakistani police today.

Officials said the head of the three-member team of British detectives, which arrived in Islamabad on Thursday, handed over the report to senior Pakistani police officials. The report will be sent to the Pakistani interior ministry, the officials added.

The British High Commission is scheduled to release an executive summary of the Scotland Yard's report while the police in Rawalpindi will hold a news conference later in the day.

A group of forensic, computer and explosives experts from the Counter-Terrorism Command of Britain's Metropolitan Police had come to Pakistan on January 4 after President Pervez Musharraf sought Scotland Yard's help to probe Bhutto's assassination.

Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27. Musharraf blamed Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud for masterminding the assassination, but the militant leader denied the charge through his spokesman.

On Thursday, the Pakistani police announced the arrest of two very important terrorists, Hasnain and Rafaqat, for their alleged involvement in the assassination.

Last month, Pakistani authorities in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan arrested 15-year-old Aitezaz Shah who claimed he was part of a five-member suicide squad sent by Mehsud to target Bhutto. Authorities are currently trying to corroborate his claims.

The Scotland Yard team spent a little more than two weeks in the country during which the British experts visited the site at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi where Bhutto was attacked, reviewed forensic and technical evidence and questioned eyewitnesses and doctors who treated her. They also reconstructed the attack on Bhutto several times.

Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party has sought a United Nations-led probe into her death but the government has rejected their demand. The PPP also said that only an UN-led inquiry would expose the 'hidden hands' behind the assassination.

(Reporting by Rezaul H Laskar)

 

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First Published: Feb 08 2008 | 5:00 PM IST

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