Scotland Yard investigators on Friday upheld the Pakistani Government’s findings that Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed by the force of a suicide bombing, dismissing her party’s claim that the former prime minister died from gunshots moments earlier.

Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party immediately rejected the British findings and repeated its demand for a UN investigation into the December 27 assassination. Party leaders want a broader, independent investigation because of their suspicions that political allies of President Pervez Musharraf may have been involved.

In a report released on Friday by British authorities in Islamabad, Home Office pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary said Bhutto suffered a massive injury on the right side of her head. Cary said the “only tenable cause” was the impact of the blast that went off as she waved to supporters from the hatch of her vehicle after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi.

“In my opinion Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto died as a result of a severe head injury sustained as a consequence of the bomb blast and due to head impact somewhere in the escape hatch of the vehicle,” Cary said in the report.

The finding supports the Pakistani Government’s contention that Bhutto suffered a fatal head wound when she hit her head after the blast. Opponents of Musharraf, many of whom suspect a broad conspiracy, have been highly skeptical of that theory, which is seen as minimising the government’s responsibility for a security breach that allowed the gunman to get close to Bhutto.

The Scotland Yard report concluded there had been a single attacker: that the man who had fired the shots at close range toward Bhutto had also blown himself up. There had been earlier suggestions that a separate bomber had lurked behind the gunman.

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