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Letter to the editor

Scotland Yard will help look into Bhutto's killing

By GRIFF WITTE, Washington Post
Published January 3, 2008

KARACHI, Pakistan - A team from Scotland Yard will investigate the killing of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced in a nationwide address Wednesday. Musharraf also defended the postponement of parliamentary elections until Feb. 18, a decision that opposition parties condemned but said they would grudgingly accept.

The admission that the Pakistani government needs outside help in its investigation came amid a domestic and international uproar over the way police officials have so far handled the case.

Authorities have come under intense criticism for hosing down the crime scene within minutes of last Thursday's gun-and-bomb attack against Bhutto, a former two-term prime minister. Critics have also said the government erred by announcing that, rather than being killed by gunfire, Bhutto died after the force of a bombing caused her head to slam against the lever of a vehicle's sunroof.

It is unclear how much the Scotland Yard investigators, who are due in Pakistan this weekend, can accomplish, given that much of the evidence has been destroyed. The team will be small and will consist only of officers from Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command.

The controversy about exactly how Bhutto died has contributed to deep suspicion about who carried out the attack. Musharraf said Wednesday that he has no doubt Islamic extremists were behind Bhutto's murder. He sought to soothe her enraged supporters - many of whom blame him and his allies for her death - by asserting that he and Bhutto shared the same goals.

"Benazir Bhutto wanted democracy and wanted to fight against terrorism, and these are exactly my wishes," Musharraf said.

But Bhutto's party said it was not satisfied with Musharraf's plans to bring in the British investigators, and it continued to press for a United Nations-led inquiry.

The party pointed to a letter Bhutto had written to Musharraf in October in which she named several people with past or current connections to the government who she said were trying to kill her.

"If it indeed was the job of terrorists, then these terrorists have already been identified in Mohtarma Bhutto's letter," the party said, using an honorific.

Musharraf's acceptance of British investigators came on the same day that the election commission said voting scheduled for Tuesday will instead take place on Feb. 18.

The delay, the commission said, was unavoidable because of damage sustained in riots last week after Bhutto's death.

Musharraf's party had backed the delay, but opposition parties had strongly opposed it, in the belief that an election next week would allow them to quickly capitalize on sympathy for Bhutto and on a strong backlash against the government.

Independent elections experts, too, had pushed for the vote to be held on time. The pretext for delaying, they said, was flimsy because the logistical hurdles could have been overcome.

Asif Zardari, Bhutto's widower and her party's new leader, said at a news conference Wednesday night that he would not call supporters to the streets in protest. The move seemed to reflect concerns that political agitation could lead to more violence.

"We ask people to be peaceful and to show their anger at the ballot box," Zardari said.

The president said in his address Wednesday that he wants a "free, fair, transparent and peaceful election." To help achieve that goal, he announced that army soldiers and paramilitary troops who had been deployed in many areas last week to quell the rioting will remain in place at least until the election, and perhaps afterward.

Militants killed

Pakistani troops killed 25 militants close to the Afghan border in fighting following the abduction of four soldiers, a military spokesman said Wednesday. The clashes took place late Tuesday in South Waziristan, a rugged region where Taliban and al-Qaida-linked extremists are known to operate, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the army's top spokesman. Security forces sustained no injuries, he said.

[Last modified January 3, 2008, 01:23:24]