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Scotland Yard team for Pakistan

LONDON: A small team of Scotland Yard detectives will travel to Pakistan this week to help in the investigation into the assassination of the former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto.

A police spokesman said the team, comprising officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter-Terrorism Command, would leave for Pakistan “as soon as possible”.

Officials, however, stressed that Pakistani authorities would continue to lead the investigation with the British police helping, essentially, with forensic analysis of evidence found on the scene of Benazir’s assassination, and related technical issues.

The decision to despatch British detectives to Pakistan follows a request from Islamabad after a row erupted over the official account of how Benazir died, sparking allegations that elements in the country’s intelligence establishment were behind her murder.

Earlier this week, senior officials of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) claimed that the day she was assassinated, Benazir had planned to meet two American Senators and show them supposedly clinching “evidence” of the Musharraf regime’s alleged plans to rig parliamentary elections. They suggested that Benazir might have been killed because her “disclosure” would have embarrassed Pakistan’s intelligence services.

Benazir’s husband and new PPP chief, Asif Ali Zardari, had called for an independent probe by international agencies saying he had no faith in the Pakistani police.

As pressure mounted, President Parvez Musharraf on Wednesday announced that he had sought British help to clear the air.

“I am sure this investigation with Scotland Yard will be correct and will remove all the doubts surrounding it [Benazir’s killing],” he said, adding that “all the confusion that has been created in the nation must be resolved”.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain was already “closely engaged” with Pakistan on counter-terrorism cooperation.

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