In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Links: Scotland Yard Investigation rules with Pakistan authorities
Background: Two more arrested in connection with Bhutto’s assassination
Reactions: Asif Ali Zardari as PPP candidate
Historical Context: Pakistan People’s Party
Key Players: Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari
Opinion & Analysis: The return of Benazir Bhutto
Related Topics: ‘On the Campaign Trail … in Pakistan’
Reference: Benazir Bhutto's memoir
Subscribe to Politics Updates
Benazir Bhutto Died of Head Trauma, U.K. Investigators Say
February 08, 2008 01:00 PM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
A Scotland Yard investigation into the cause of Benazir Bhutto’s death concurs with the Pakistani government's report. Her party disputes the findings.
30-Second Summary
Detectives from Scotland Yard released a report today that said Benazir Bhutto probably died of a head injury from a bomb blast, not from a bullet. The investigators stated that some doubt as to cause of death will remain as a full autopsy was never performed.
The Pakistani People’s Party, the party led by former Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto, is calling for further investigation. The PPP suspects that the Pakistani government may be concealing evidence.
A day earlier, after Islamic rituals commemorating the 40th day since Bhutto's death, her husband Asif Ali Zardari gave a speech promising “revenge and a change to the status quo.”
The address came the same day as a report from the Pakistani Interior Ministry saying Pakistani police had arrested two suspects in connection with Bhutto’s murder.
Victoria Schofield, a lifelong friend of Bhutto’s, accompanied her on her return to Pakistan after years of exile in Dubai. Riding along with the former president on an open-deck bus, Schofield said in an interview with BBC’s Radio 4 that, with regards to resuming the top Pakistani political post, Bhutto had “the feeling that she had passed to the next stage of her life.”
This echoes the words of Bhutto’s memoir “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West,” due to be released on Feb. 12. “We had, of course, been discouraged from returning. Musharraf had told me in private meetings and conversations that I should come back only after the elections he was planning.” According to the Times of London, she was putting the last touches on her book at the time of her Dec. 27 assassination.
The Pakistani People’s Party, the party led by former Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto, is calling for further investigation. The PPP suspects that the Pakistani government may be concealing evidence.
A day earlier, after Islamic rituals commemorating the 40th day since Bhutto's death, her husband Asif Ali Zardari gave a speech promising “revenge and a change to the status quo.”
The address came the same day as a report from the Pakistani Interior Ministry saying Pakistani police had arrested two suspects in connection with Bhutto’s murder.
Victoria Schofield, a lifelong friend of Bhutto’s, accompanied her on her return to Pakistan after years of exile in Dubai. Riding along with the former president on an open-deck bus, Schofield said in an interview with BBC’s Radio 4 that, with regards to resuming the top Pakistani political post, Bhutto had “the feeling that she had passed to the next stage of her life.”
This echoes the words of Bhutto’s memoir “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West,” due to be released on Feb. 12. “We had, of course, been discouraged from returning. Musharraf had told me in private meetings and conversations that I should come back only after the elections he was planning.” According to the Times of London, she was putting the last touches on her book at the time of her Dec. 27 assassination.
Headline Links: Scotland Yard Investigation rules with Pakistan authorities
After studying television footage and X-rays, Scotland Yard has concluded that Benazir Bhutto died of trauma to the head following a bomb blast, rather than by gunshot as the Pakistan People’s Party asserts. The Yard’s official report said, “The blast caused a violent collision between her head and the escape hatch area of the vehicle, causing a severe and fatal injury.
Source: The BBC
The Pakistan People’s Party called for an independent investigation after Scotland Yard confirmed the Pakistani government's findings. Sherry Rehman, spokeswoman for the party, said “We will continue our quest for an independent inquiry on the perpetrators of the crime.” The Wall Street Journal writes that no post-mortem examination was done on Bhutto’s body, and the area was hosed down soon after the crime, removing potential forensic evidence.
Source: The Wall Street Journal (registration required)
The Times of London has the full text of the Scotland Yard report on its Web site.
Source: The Times of London
Background: Two more arrested in connection with Bhutto’s assassination
Benazir Bhutto’s tomb has been crowded with thousands of well-wishers looking to pay their last respects before the end of the traditional Islamic 40-day mourning period. The slain politician’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari delivered a speech at the Bhutto family’s ancestral village, Naudero, on Feb. 7. The speech kicked off the Pakistan People’s Party campaign for for the Feb. 18 elections. In his address he vowed “revenge and a change to the status quo,” reported Al-Jazeera.
Source: Al-Jazeera
Javed Iqbal Cheema, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, said two more suspects were arrested in the city of Rawalpindi in connection with the murder of Benazir Bhutto.
Source: USA Today
Reactions: Asif Ali Zardari as PPP candidate
In a phone interview with Newsweek, Asif Ali Zardari said that he would be the best prime ministerial candidate for the PPP. "There is no one single personality [in the party], apart from me, who anybody even knows," he said. "No one else has a consensus."
Source: Newsweek
Historical Context: Pakistan People’s Party
The Pakistan Peoples Party was founded by Benazir Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in 1967. According to the PPP’s official Web site, the party’s founding principle “places a responsibility on each PPP supporter to reach out in a spirit of accommodation and tolerance to all faiths, to prevent the state from interfering in the religious rights of the citizens (which breeds sectarianism) and to treat people of all faiths with respect enabling them to enjoy religious freedom and equality before the law.”
Source: Pakistan People’s Party
Key Players: Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari
Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007)
Benazir Bhutto was born in 1953 in the Pakistani province of Sindh, and later attended Harvard and Oxford. She was the last politically active member of her family: both of her brothers—having been active in Pakistani politics—were murdered, Shahnawaz in 1985 and Murtaza in 1996. The BBC provides a short obituary of Bhutto.
Source: The BBC
After her death, Benazir Bhutto’s political will stirred family conflicts that have divided the political dynasty for decades. The Bhuttos' history is marred by violence and accusations of fratricide and corruption. In an article titled “Bhutto's Uncle Renounces Succession of her Son,” Beyond the Headlines examines the political fissures that continue to divide the family.
Source: findingDulcinea
Asif Ali Zardari
In 1998, The New York Times conducted a special report investigating the corruption charges brought against Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari. Many of the allegations centered on a collection of family documents that Bhutto’s political rivals purchased for $1 million from an unnamed intermediary source. According to the Times, “The documents leave uncertain the degree of involvement by Bhutto … But they trace the pervasive role of her husband, Asif Zardari, who turned his marriage to Bhutto into a source of virtually unchallengeable power.”
Source: SamSloan.com (reprinted from The New York Times)
The Bhutto dynasty
The International Herald Tribune provides short profiles of key figures in the Bhutto dynasty.
Source: International Herald Tribune
Opinion & Analysis: The return of Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto recalls her decision to return in her memoir entitled “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West” which she was still writing at the time of her death. “Many of the same people who had collaborated with an earlier military junta in the judicial murder of my father were now entrenched in power in the Musharraf regime and the intelligence apparatus ... We had, of course, been discouraged from returning. Musharraf had told me in private meetings and conversations that I should come back only after elections he was planning.”
Source: The Times
Victoria Schofield, a friend of Bhutto’s from their days at Oxford, recalls the day that terrorists attacked the former Pakistani leader’s convoy following her October return from exile in Dubai. “She had the feeling that she had passed to the next stage of her life ... We were inching forward in an open-deck bus so she could wave. We were literally surrounded by people. In Pakistan you don’t have the sort of barricades that you would see in a Western country,” Schofield recalls.
Source: The BBC
Related Topics: ‘On the Campaign Trail … in Pakistan’
Pakistani parliamentary candidate Abida Hussain first joined the Pakistani People’s Party decades ago, but left out of internal party strife. She returned in 2003 at the request of Benazir Bhutto. She now sees her campaign as what Time magazine calls a “sacred trust.” She tells voters gatherings that they can “avenge Benazir Bhutto’s death, and all dictatorships in our history, by voting for me, by voting for PPP.” She blames current President Pervez Musharraf for Bhutto’s death, according to Time.
Source: Time
Reference: Benazir Bhutto's memoir
Bhutto’s memoir will be released on Feb. 12 and is available at findingDulcinea’s bookstore.
Source: findingDulcinea’s Bookstore
© 2010 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
