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Benazir’s email ridiculous:
Govt
Islamabad, December 31
Pakistani authorities have dismissed as ridiculous an email that slain former Premier Benazir Bhutto had sent to her US-based spokesman which said that President Pervez Musharraf would be responsible if anything happened to
her.
"It's a ridiculous statement which doesn't deserve a comment," said the president's spokesman Maj Gen Rashid Qureshi
(retd). "I don't want to dignify it by offering any comment on it," Qureshi was quoted as saying by the Dawn
newspaper. — PTI |
Islamabad, December 31
A new footage of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and an inconclusive medical report on the cause of her death have contradicted the Pakistan Government's version of the former Premier's death and lent credence to her party's claim that she was shot dead.
The footage aired today by Britain's Channel 4 and subsequently beamed by Pakistani channels showed that Bhutto, who stood at the sun-roof of her bulletproof vehicle, had fallen into the car after shots were fired and before a suicide bomber detonated his explosives after the Rawalpindi rally on December 27.
This was contrary to the government's account - based on a medical report prepared by doctors at the hospital where Bhutto died - that the force of the blast had thrown Bhutto against a metal lever on the car's sun-roof, causing a fatal skull fracture.
However, Athar Minallah, a top lawyer and a member of the board of management of Rawalpindi General Hospital where Bhutto was taken after the attack, said the doctors had a one line finding on the cause of death - "Open head injury with depressed skull fracture, leading to cardiopulmonary arrest."
Minallah said the initial report does not say what caused her death but said "open head injury" and it could have been caused by "a bullet, shrapnel or a lever of the car".
The new revelations are likely to intensify calls and strengthen her party's demand for an international UN probe similar to the one investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri.
The new video, which came a day after photos emerged of an armed youth shooting Bhutto, will strengthen suspicion that the government was trying to cover up the extent of the lapses in Bhutto's security.
— PTI
