The
report published yesterday by the UK government's commission in
Pakistan of Scotland Yard's investigation into the circumstances of
Benazir Bhutto's assassination has rather unsurprisingly concluded that
the PPP leader died of a trauma to her head thereby corroborating the
Pakistani government's version of events.
Facing a tremendous loss of credibility following Bhutto's assassination due to several conflicting Interior Ministry statements about the cause of her death, the poor level of security at the fatal political rally and the non-protection of the crime scene for forensic examination, the Pakistani government requested British assistance as an independent arbiter to investigate the assassination. Officers from Scotland Yard were dispatched to Pakistan to examine the available remaining evidence accumulated by the Pakistani authorities.
Their findings and the conclusions they have drawn, however, will not gain widespread acceptance due to amateur video evidence clearly showing a gunman firing shots at Ms Bhutto from close range, her headscarf moving as if due to an impact and her falling down into her car all prior to the explosion which is claimed to have been the cause of death. The report's conclusions also contradict eyewitness statements from Bhutto's own party officials at the scene and her close relatives who washed her body. Interestingly, both the video evidence and eyewitness testimonies fail to get a mention in the Scotland Yard report!
While the western media will no doubt call the mass rejection of the Pakistani government's and Scotland yard's conclusions a victory for the conspiracy theorists, both Britain and the US have a lot to gain by keeping Musharraf in power. With Benazir, the daughter of the west, no longer on the political scene and Nawaz Sheriff's influence significantly undermined, the absence of a credible alternative to Musharraf means that the door is open to Islamic parties to exploit the political vacuum. This is why both Britain and the US is keen to maintain Musharraf in power so that Pakistan continues to stay the course as the US' proxy in the war on terror.
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