Scotland Yard detectives are expected in Pakistan by the weekend after President Musharraf announced last night that he had asked Britain to help to investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister.

Mr Musharraf’s Government also said that parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8 would be postponed until February 18 because of Ms Bhutto’s death and the rioting that engulfed much of Pakistan afterwards.

The two moves were designed to deflect widespread accusations that Pakistani authorities were covering up evidence relating to the assassination and were trying to push back the elections even further.

“We decided to request a team from Scotland Yard to come,” a stony-faced President Musharraf said in a televised address to the nation.

He said that the team would “help to cover our deficiencies in the field of forensics”, adding: “I am sure this investigation with Scotland Yard will be correct and will remove all the doubts surrounding it.”

Scotland Yard confirmed that it was sending officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command. “The Pakistan authorities continue to lead the investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s death,” it said in a brief statement. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that the team was due to set off by the end of the week.

British authorities said that the five officers will help with forensic science examinations and other matters, but will not become embroiled in the investigation’s politics. That, however, seems almost impossible, given the circumstances of the death of Ms Bhutto, the intensity of the political climate and the persistent allegations that parts of Pakistan’s security services may have been involved.

Forensic examination of the scene of Ms Bhutto’s killing would be severely hindered by the fact that the authorities hosed down the area minutes after the attack.

The Government has blamed Baitullah Mehsoud, a top leader of the Pakistani Taleban, for the assassination, but he has denied any involvement, and Bhutto family members have pointed accusing fingers at the Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

The request by President Musharraf for help from Britain was derided by Asif Ali Zardari, Ms Bhutto’s widower and the new co-chairman of her party, who called for a United Nations investigation, like that into the killing of Rafiq Hariri, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon.

“Now they have remembered Scotland Yard. Why did they not call it when Benazir Bhutto first demanded it after the Karachi blast?” Mr Zardari commented to reporters.

At least 139 people were killed in a double suicide-bomb attack on Ms Bhutto’s motorcade in Karachi on October 18, when she celebrated her return from eight years’ self-imposed exile. Ms Bhutto had repeatedly called for President Musharraf to allow Scotland Yard and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to help to investigate that attack, but theGovernment refused.

In his speech last night President Musharraf said that he wanted to rule out the “conspiracy theories”. “All the confusion that has been created in the nation must be resolved,” he said. “This is a time for reconciliation and not for confrontation.”

The United States welcomed the decision to call in British police and offered to assist, but said that a UN investigation was not necessary.

President Musharraf said that he had wanted elections to go ahead as planned on Tuesday but that the destruction of election offices in Sindh, the home province of Ms Bhutto, had made that impossible. The Pakistan People’s Party that she led condemned the postponement as a ploy to rob it of sympathy votes, but said that it would take part in the polls.

“People should be peaceful and express their anger through their ballots,” Mr Zardari said.

The party of Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister, also said that it would participate despite an earlier threat to boycott the election.

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