Six UK experts leave to analyse evidence

By Mohammad Asghar

RAWALPINDI, Jan 14: Six investigators of the Scotland Yard team helping the local authorities in investigation into the assassination of Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto left for the United Kingdom on Monday to analyse evidence collected so far, official sources said.

“They have gone back to the UK to analyse whatever they have collected from here and are expected back on Jan 27,” the sources said.

Four members of the team who have stayed here will resume their work after a day’s break on Wednesday.

The investigators took to the UK with them samples of human tissues, evidence collected from the site of the blast and brain matter from Ms Bhutto’s car. They will analyse the material collected from the car.

“The investigators had sent some of the samples through

courier service while they took the remaining material with them,” the source said. “They will reconstruct the crime scene in three dimensions and analyse it.”

Two Scotland Yard investigators went to the Combined Military Hospital and met Deputy Superintendent of Police Ishtiaq Hussain Shah, who was wounded during the gun and suicide bomb attack on Ms Bhutto on Dec 27.

The investigators stayed with the police official for nearly one hour. Later they went to the pathology laboratory and examined some body parts believed to be of the suicide bomber.

On Sunday, the investigators had visited the site of the attack and two government hospitals -- one where Ms Bhutto had been taken and the other where the remaining injured were treated.

During their visit to Liaquat Bagh, the investigators installed electronic devices on rooftops within a radius of 200 metres from the site, taking photographs.

The team examined the parking area where Ms Bhutto’s vehicle had come under attack.

In the Rawalpindi General Hospital, two of the experts were taken to the emergency section and the operation theatre.

Sources in the hospital said the foreign experts talked to the radiologists who had taken Ms Bhutto’s X-rays. An investigator also talked with other hospital staff.

The foreign experts asked questions regarding the timing of X-rays, the sources said.

“The atmosphere in the operation theatre was quite different from Dec 27 as several things have been changed,” the sources claimed.

A forensics expert went to the District Headquarters Hospital and examined two human legs – a pair of sandals and two socks believed to be of the suicide bomber.

The forensic expert took tissue samples from the legs and some photographs.

A police official told the expert he believed that the same type of sandals had been found in two earlier suicide bombings.