Scotland Yard risks inflaming the heated preelection political atmosphere in Pakistan today when it delivers its report on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistani government officials were confident that the Metropolitan Police inquiry would confirm their view of how Ms Bhutto died from a head injury sustained when she struck her head on her car.

President Musharraf claimed that the opposition leader died from injuries caused when she ducked into her vehicle after it had been attacked by a gunman and a suicide bomber when she was driven away from an election rally on December 27. A senior official said: “Pakistani and Scotland Yard investigators are in consensus on the cause of death.”

Such a conclusion would enrage Ms Bhutto’s family and political supporters, who claim that she died from gunshot wounds. They are about to resume campaigning for the parliamentary elections on February 18 now that the 40-day period of mourning for Ms Bhutto has ended. More than 10,000 people gathered in her home town of Naudero yesterday to mark the end of the mourning period.

Bhutto was killed by bomb blast

The team from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command have backed the claim that Benazir Bhutto was not shot

BACKGROUND

• Pakistan in turmoil as ‘martial law’ imposed

• Bhutto escapes as bombers kill 126

• Timeline: Pakistan's period of turmoil

• The man out to oust a President

• Internal crisis gives Pakistan reason for hope

Related Links

• Scotland Yard police a ‘fig leaf’ for Musharraf

• Scotland Yard asked to find Bhutto's killers

Scotland Yard refused to comment on its findings and said that its report belonged to the Pakistani police, who retained “the primacy and responsibility for the investigation”. A team from Scotland Yard, led by Detective Superintendent John MacBrayne of Counter-terrorism Command, will present the report in Islamabad this morning.

The Metropolitan Police were invited to Pakistan by the authorities in January because of controversy about how Ms Bhutto died. The remit of the team was limited to establishing the cause of death and identifying where the attackers were. Its detectives have not inquired into who carried out the attack nor why it was mounted.

The British officers faced serious difficulties. They were not able to examine the body of Ms Bhutto and vital evidence had been destroyed at the crime scene when it was hosed down after the attack.

It is understood that the officers reached some preliminary conclusions from studying the car and conducting analysis of video footage and other material.

Colleagues of Ms Bhutto in the Pakistan People’s Party called for an independent United Nations investigation, and Human Rights Watch said that Scotland Yard should step back from the inquiry. A spokesman for the human rights group said: “Pakistan’s investigation into Bhutto’s murder lacks independence, transparency and credibility. Scotland Yard should not tarnish its reputation by lending its imprimatur to this dubious inquiry.”

The request from Islamabad was not an easy one for Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to refuse. Almost every terrorist attack or plot against Britain in the past five years has had links to Pakistan and the al-Qaeda training camps in its tribal areas. Access to Pakistan and cooperation with its police and intelligence services is essential to Scotland Yard and the relationship can be fragile.

Hamid Nawaz, the Pakistani Interior Minister, said that the investigation was continuing and identified two men who have been arrested in connection with the assassination as Rafaqat and Hasnain. He said that the men were linked to an Islamic militant group but declined to give any further detail. The arrests were made in a middle-class district of the garrison town of Rawalpindi, where Ms Bhutto was killed.

Police in northwestern Pakistan claimed last month that they had arrested two other suspects, including a 15-year-old boy who was alleged to have been part of the suicide squad that was assigned to kill Ms Bhutto.

The Government of Mr Musharraf has named Baitullah Mehsud, a pro-al-Qaeda tribal militant leader who is spearheading fighting against Pakistani forces in South Waziristan, as the mastermind of the assassination. Mehsud, 34, is the leader of Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan, which is seeking to establish conservative Islamic rule in northern Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan.

Supporters of Ms Bhutto dismissed the claim that Mehsud was responsible for the assassination and accused the Government of a cover-up.

Times Recommends

• Cairo women fight back against harassment
• Weapons-grade flirting for Hillary and David
• More at stake in Start talks than US and Russia