Sunday, December 30, 2007

Pak TV station shows Bhutto shooter, contradicts govt

Khaleej Times online, 30 December 2007

ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani television station released footage early Sunday claiming that opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was shot dead by an assassin before an accomplice detonated a suicide bomb, contrary to official government claims.

The new, exclusive images from the Pakistani-based DawnNews TV show a young gunman, wearing sunglasses and dressed in a light-brown sports jacket, firing at Bhutto as she stood atop the sunroof of her white security Range Rover following an election campaign rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Thursday.

The footage clearly shows Bhutto collapsing into her vehicle before the suicide blast, contradicting official government claims that she recoiled only after the blast and cracked her skull on the sunroof.

The government’s official version, which included only partial footage of the attack, has been met with widespread derision. Bhutto’s senior aides inside the vehicle are adamant that she was shot.

On Saturday night, Pakistan Interior Ministry officials again had insisted that Bhutto died after cracking her skull off a lever of the vehicle’s sunroof following a recoil from the bomb blast.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

After the last video, I thought it was quite credible that she didn't die from gunshot wounds.

The bomb blast happened on the left-hand side of her vehicle. Watch the video closely and you'll see that she's still descending down through the sunroof moments before the blast. Perhaps she was wounded at that point, perhaps not. One cannot tell.

The shock wave from the blast would have slammed shut the left-hand panel of the sunroof with enormous force.

After all is said and done, I think they will find that one of the big latches of the sunroof smashed into and crushed her skull.