Controversy over Bhutto's death deepens

December 30, 2007

The controversy over the cause of former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto's death has deepened, with the airing of photographs, that apparently showed an armed youth shooting her as she stood at the sun-roof of her bulletproof vehicle.
The Dawn News channel on Saturday aired four grainy photos it obtained from an amateur photographer, including one that, it said, showed the suspected shooter and the suspected suicide bomber involved in the assassination of Bhutto in Rawalpindi on Thursday.
Two photos showed the shooter -- a clean-shaven youth wearing a white shirt, dark waistcoat and dark glasses --aiming a pistol at Bhutto's back while she waved through the sun-roof of her car to her supporters.
The suspected suicide bomber was a man who had a white cloth wrapped around his face.
The shooter was a few metres from Bhutto and was standing to the left of her vehicle. Bhutto had emerged through the sun-roof to acknowledge the cheers of her supporters.
Dawn News said that the fourth photo, taken after the shots were fired and before the suicide bomber detonated his explosives, apparently showed that Bhutto was no longer standing at the sun-roof.
The position of the youth with the pistol in the photo coincided with the position of the shooter seen in video footage of the attack on Bhutto, released by the interior ministry, on Friday.
In that footage, the face of the shooter is obscured but his hand can be seen holding a pistol that is used to fire three to four shots towards Bhutto. In the video too, Bhutto had her back towards the shooter.
Sherry Rehman, a close aide of Bhutto, has said the former premier died after being hit in the head by a bullet. Rehman also dismissed as 'absolute nonsense the Interior Ministry's contention that Bhutto had hit her head against a metal lever on the sun-roof due to the force of the blast, and died after fracturing her skull.
Rehman had told the media on Saturday that Bhutto had been hit in the back of her head by a bullet, which came out on the other side.
Reacting to Rehman's allegations, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema offered to exhume Bhutto's body to conduct an autopsy to settle the controversy over how she had died.