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Islamabad: The Pakistan Peoples Party said it was not convinced by the conclusions of the British police on the assassination of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto.
"The party is still looking at the Scotland Yard report. However, it is difficult to agree with its findings on the cause of death," said PPP information secretary Sherry Rehman.
"We do believe that she was killed by an assassin's bullet," she said, adding that the Scotland Yard's "terms of reference were limited".
She reiterated the party's consistent call for a United Nations inquiry into the assassination, a demand ruled out by the Pakistan government.
The British High Commission (embassy) released a summary of their report on Friday, which backed the government's version of the assassination in Rawalpindi city on December 27.
PPP spokesman Farahatullah Babar said that the Scotland Yard team was not allowed to investigate as to who were the perpetrators, financiers or organisers of the crime.
"We will however give formal comments on the report when it is made public," he told a private television channel.
Arrests
Babar said that under the limited mandate all that the Scotland Yard team was required to do was to investigate the cause of Bhutto's death.
Therefore no matter what the Scotland Yard team says now, the basic question remains unanswered, he said.
Pakistani officials said on Thursday that they had detained two "suspected terrorists" over the murder in Rawalpindi, identifying them as Hasnain and Rafaqat.
Last month, two other suspects were arrested from Dear Ismail Khan in the North West Frontier Province and according to reports quoting police, one of them, a 15-year old boy, had confessed to being part of a team instructed to kill the opposition leader.
The boy had reportedly named Pakistani tribal militant commander, Baitullah Mehsud, as being behind the assassination.
Instability fears
Mehsud has already been accused by the government of involvement in Bhutto's assassination. The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency has also accused Mehsud of ordering the murder. Bhutto's assassination heightened fears of instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan. It also delayed an election that may lead to US ally President Pervez Musharraf's downfall if a hostile parliament emerges from the February 18 vote.
The British report also said Bhutto was probably killed by a lone assassin, who fired shots and detonated explosives, and was not attacked by two people as many Pakistanis had speculated. "The only tenable cause for the rapidly fatal head injury in this case is that it occurred as the result of impact due to the effects of the bomb-blast," British government pathologist Nathaniel Cary said in the report.
Cary said he suspected Bhutto hit her head against the sunroof, backing an explanation the government had also given.
The PPP is expected to ride a wave of sympathy at the polls.
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