Benazir Bhutto Killed By Her Car Sunroof?
Benazir Bhutto hasn't been dead 24 hours yet and it appears that the world will never know the whole truth behind her murder. When the news first broke reports had it that she had been shot in the neck and then a suicide bomber detonated and bomb. This morning we were told by the AFP:
The surgeon who treated Benazir Bhutto says she died from a shrapnel wound to the head. Authorities initially said the slain Pakistani opposition leader died from bullet wounds. But Dr. Mussadiq Khan, a surgeon who treated her, said Friday that she died from shrapnel that hit her on the right side of the skull. He also says Bhutto had no heart beat or pulse when she arrived at the hospital and that doctors failed in their efforts to resuscitate her ( link ).
In the fog and confusion after this terrible incident I can accept that there would be some discrepancy between the reported facts. Numerous reports stated that a gunman with a Kalashnikov (AK-47) took aim and fired at Bhutto before blowing himself up. If Bhutto's surgeon said there was no bullet wound then I can accept that, but now the Interior Ministry has an explanation for her death that it expects us all to believe:
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan's interior ministry said Friday that Benazir Bhutto was killed after smashing her head on her car's sunroof while trying to duck, and that no bullet or shrapnel was found inside her.
The ministry also said it had intercepted a phone call from a top Al-Qaeda figure congratulating a militant for the attack on her Thursday, and said there was "irrefutable evidence" the group was trying to destabilise the country.
Bhutto's death after a suicide bomber blew himself up at her campaign rally has plunged this nuclear-armed Islamic nation into turmoil, but the ministry said she would have lived if only she had stayed inside her car.
"If she had not come out of the vehicle, she would have been unhurt, as all the other occupants of the vehicle did not receive any injuries," ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said. He said the post-mortem on the populist opposition leader, whose funeral earlier Friday was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners, found her mortal wound came when she tried to duck after the bomber attacked.
The bomber also apparently fired three times at her but missed, Cheema said. When she ducked, she hit the lever of the sunroof of the car that was to speed her away from a campaign rally as she was gearing up to contest parliamentary elections set for January 8.
"The lever struck near her right ear and fractured her skull," Cheema said. "There was no bullet or metal shrapnel found in the injury."( link)
I doubt I'm the only one who thinks this is total BS. The world of Pakistani politics is murky and dirty. While some people pointed the finger at President Musharraf he had no sane reason to have Bhutto killed. Indeed, Musharraf and Bhutto had a common enemy in the radical Islamists that are trying to control the country. Al Qaeda, specifically Usama bin Laden, had (in their warped minds) good cause to kill her (link) and the world would readily accept that they did this as we all know that Al Qaeda is capable of horrendous crimes.
So what is the world to believe? Do we accept confused first hand accounts, do we accept the word of Bhutto's attending surgeon, or do we accept the word of Pakistan's Interior Ministry? Malarkey like the above will not serve the cause of bringing Bhutto's murders to justice and maybe that is exactly what the Interior Ministry wants.

Benazir Bhutto 1953 - 2007 (link)
Update @ 16:12 - Upon reflection, I think the key phrase in the statement from the Interior Ministry is this:
"If she had not come out of the vehicle, she would have been unhurt, as all the other occupants of the vehicle did not receive any injuries,"
What we have here is the Pakistan Government blaming Bhutto for her own death. It would be like the US Treasury Department saying JFK wouldn't have been killed had he been in the back of a hardtop car in Dallas. Observers and supporters of Bhutto have noted that Bhutto should have been receiving the same amount of security as Musharraf. The Pakistani government is firm in it's position that Al Qaeda is behind her murder. What it is also saying is that by standing up in her car, Bhutto was directly responsible for her own death. How pathetic.
Second update: Both the BBC and CTV have are now reporting facts noted in the original post. I will be updating this post through the weekend via the comments section.
Third update, December 29 @ 18:45 - Newly released video tape, which can be seen here, clearly shows a man shooting at Benazir Bhutto from point blank range as her vehicle slowly moves forward through the crowd. Momements later we see the explosion, her assailant was no more than a few feet from Bhutto's vehicle. We can say now without hesitation that the assertion of the Pakistan Interior Ministry that Benazir Bhutto died from hitting her head on the sunroof is without merit. Benazir Bhutto was murdered, when will the Goverment of Pakistan stopping trying to deflect blame on itself and start hunting down the people responsible for this tragedy?
Labels: Islamic Tolerance, Mitchieville Remembers, Rants














