British team in Pakistan for Bhutto killing probe

A team of British police arrived in Pakistan on Friday to join an investigation into the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

Bhutto, a two-time prime minister, was killed in a gun and bomb attack in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27 shortly after she stood up through the sunroof of her armoured land cruiser to wave to supporters as she left an election rally.

President Pervez Musharraf said on Wednesday he had asked British police to assist in the investigations amid a storm of controversy about how Bhutto was killed.

The small Scotland Yard team arrived at Islamabad airport but members declined to comment to reporters.

Musharraf told a news conference in Islamabad on Thursday he was not fully satisfied with the investigation.

The site of the attack was hosed down soon after the blast, which killed 23 people apart from Bhutto, but Musharraf denied that was an attempt to cover-up evidence.

He also said authorities should not have rushed to declare Bhutto was killed when the force of the blast smashed her head into a lever on her vehicle's sunroof, fracturing her skull.

Bhutto's party says she was shot. No autopsy was performed at the request of her husband who said it was clear she had been killed by a bullet.

The controversy over exactly how she died has only fuelled conspiracy theories and anger against Musharraf.

The government has blamed al Qaeda militants for the attack on the opposition leader, who had spoken out strongly on the need to tackle militancy.

But many Pakistanis believe other Bhutto enemies, perhaps including elements of the security agencies, were involved.

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Musharraf rejected on Thursday any suggestion security agencies were behind the assassination and said Bhutto had ignored warnings about threats from militants.

Video footage of the attack showed a clean-shaven young man wan wearing sunglasses firing a pistol at Bhutto as she stood through the sunroof.

Another man photographed in the crowd with a white shawl over his head shortly before the attack was believed to be the suicide bomber, a television station said.

The government on Wednesday published still photographs of the two men taken from the video footage, and the severed head of the suspected bomber, and offered a reward of 10 million rupees (83,221 pounds) for information leading to their identification.

Bhutto's party has demanded a United Nations investigation of her murder and said it would not cooperate with the British team.

Hours after arriving home from eight years of self-imposed exile on October 18 Bhutto narrowly escaped a suicide bomb attack on her motorcade procession in the city of Karachi that killed about 140 people.

Musharraf, a staunch ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, has himself survived two al Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks.