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Islamabad: British anti-terror investigators arrived in Pakistan on Friday to lend their forensic expertise to the investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf invited the Scotland Yard officers here in an effort to quell growing demands for a UN investigation and to dispel accusations that government forces may have had a hand in the December 27 shooting and bombing attack that killed Bhutto.
“The team has arrived,” British High Commission [embassy] spokesman Aidan Liddle said. “They are here to offer assistance to the Pakistani inquiry and do whatever they can.”
Around six suited men believed to be the British team were ushered out of the airport at Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, and into a white minibus before shutting the curtains and speeding off without talking to reporters.
Musharraf met on Friday with senior security officials and the heads of the nation’s provinces to assess the damage caused by four days of rioting sparked by her killing and to prevent future violence, according to Pakistan state radio.
Damage
“Necessary steps have to be taken so that it does not ever occur again,” he said.
Officials in Bhutto’s Sindh province, the site of the worst rioting, estimate about Rs80 billion (Dh4.78 billion) in damage.
Musharraf and his advisers also discussed ways to maintain order in the country ahead of parliamentary elections, which were postponed for six weeks until February 18 following the unrest, the radio reported.
The president, a key US ally in the war on terror, announced on Wednesday he was inviting Scotland Yard investigators to Pakistan to provide forensic and technical expertise to the probe on Bhutto’s killing.
The government initially said she was killed when the shock waves from the bomb slammed her head into her vehicle. Her supporters say she was killed by the gunman and accuse the government of a cover up.
Musharraf said the investigators would not be allowed to go on a “wild goose chase and create a political disturbance” in the country.
Opposition stand
The British officers declined to comment to reporters as they arrived at Islamabad airport last morning.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki visited Islamabad to pay his condolences to Bhutto’s supporters.
“Those who have done this crime have targeted the stability and security of Pakistan,” he told reporters after visiting the headquarters of Bhutto’s party.
“Extremism and terrorism has no place in the minds and in the hearts of the people of this region.”
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) that Bhutto headed said the Scotland Yard team will fail to shed any light on the murder, her party said.
“This Scotland Yard team... what will it do here? It will work under the patronage of the government. It is going to be a meaningless exercise,” said Farooq Naik, a lawyer and Bhutto’s top aide. He said the PPP would not cooperate with any investigation other than one held under the auspices of the United Nations, such as the UN-led probe into the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.
“We reject it, we will not join it,” Naik said. “An international investigation commission should be set up, appointed by the UN and answerable to the UN and nobody else.”
The government has already ruled out any UN-led inquiry into the assassination of Bhutto at an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi on December 27.
Official version
Bhutto supporters have blamed Musharraf for failing to provide adequate security for the two-time former prime minister, who had survived an earlier suicide bombing in October which left scores dead.
It has also described the official version of her death — from head wounds resulting from banging her head against her car as she tried to duck for safety — as a farcical attempt to cover up the truth of what happened.
Before her death, Bhutto had publicly accused senior government and intelligence officials of plotting to kill her after her return from self-imposed exile in October. Musharraf has angrily denied any government involvement in the murder.
But he conceded to reporters on Thursday that he was unhappy with the domestic investigation, amid questions over why the crime scene was washed clean immediately after the attack.
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