KARACHI, Pakistan — Scotland Yard's report on the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto leaves a number of important questions unanswered:
How could the British police team be certain about the cause of death in the absence of an autopsy and based solely on X-rays of Bhutto's head, the attending doctors' hurried notes and the accounts of family members to Pakistani police?
Why didn't Pakistani authorities exercise their right in murder cases to order an autopsy after Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, refused to permit one?
Several witness accounts spoke of a bullet wound in Bhutto's neck, but the X-rays and doctors' reports say nothing about her neck. The report says that a British pathologist couldn't "categorically" exclude a gunshot wound but that other unspecified evidence "suggests there is no gunshot injury."
Who ordered the crime scene to be cleared and hosed down within two hours of the attack, destroying crucial forensic evidence?
Why was there scant police protection and no security cordon as Bhutto left the Rawalpindi rally? Why were government-provided jammers that prevent cellular telephones from being used to trigger bombs apparently not working?
On the night Bhutto died, doctors at the hospital first said that her death resulted from a bullet wound. What made them change their story to say that it was shrapnel?
If, as the report says, Bhutto's head disappeared into the vehicle escape hatch 0.6 seconds before the blast, how did she collide with the hatch?
Was the short distance that her head would have moved to hit the hatch capable of generating enough force to cause a fatal injury? A leaked Pakistani investigation report suggested that the distance was too short.
Why were the biggest questions — who did it and why? — put off-limits to Scotland Yard?
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