A lot more info (some relating to Thomas’s earlier post) is cued up here.

Not to sound morbid but does anyone know if there are any pics of her body? Based on her history with the US, the CIA’s involvement in her return to Pakistan, her standing through roof of the car, a suicide bomb that didn’t seem to have any other purposes than to kill anyone close enough to the vehicle to be a good witness and how this sets up a situation that the CIA would’ve scripted if they could (not saying they couldn’t), I won’t be sold she actually died until I see a convincing photo.

You (and the crowds of armchair commentators writing about Pakistan) have much to learn.

I am a Pakistani who is almost fifty, am a voracious reader and news addict who has been reading Pakistani and foreign newpapers since childhood. I have lived in three of the four provinces of Pakistan. So I know something about my country. But I still learn something new every day, because this is a vast and complex place.

I never cease to be surprised by the people who write about my country from afar. They write with such assurance, such crystalline certainty, as if there were not myriad angles, subtleties and nuances in every human story.

> What a victims family or spouse wants concerning a postmortem is irrelevant in a murder case according to Pakistani law.

Irrelevant, you say. Such confidence! If I asked a Pakistani lawyer whether, in a case where a family member is not a declared suspect, the police can order a postmortem without the family’s consent, the lawyer would probably tell me, “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. Let me research it and get back to you.”

But if you don’t believe me, believe this:
“One of the major obstacles that Scotland Yard will face is that Ms. Bhutto was buried without an autopsy at Mr. Zardari’s request. He is not likely to allow investigators to exhume her body now. (Autopsies are unusual in Pakistan, out of respect for the body of the deceased, especially in cases involving women.)”
Scotland Yard to help probe Bhutto killing, Globe and Mail, Jan. 2, 2008

Oh, and that hospital board member is an anti-government partisan whose account of the events is unlikely to be objective. Something Jane Perlez should have noted, assuming she even knew about it.

More confused reporting from the New York Times:
“Pakistani officials said a request for an autopsy had been refused by Ms. Bhutto’s aides and by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who told reporters an autopsy was unnecessary and would have been an insult to Ms. Bhutto. Doctors at the hospital where she was pronounced dead said their request for an autopsy was denied by the local police chief.” [Emphasis mine]
Pakistan Turns to Britain for Help in Bhutto Inquiry, New York Times, January 3, 2008

Mr. Zardari has told reporters that he has refused to give permission for an autopsy. Could the police order an autopsy without the family’s consent, even though no family member is a declared suspect? As our Pakistani lawyer friend would say, “I’ll have to research that”. But in practice, it would be a seen as a violation, and in this case it would cause a national uproar, and perhaps the defeat of the government at next month’s elections.

> your claim that the government wanted an autopsy is absolutely false I’m afraid.

You seem so sure. With so little basis.

Let me break it down for you:
Mr Zardari refused. An autopsy. That the government requested. Because it would be an “insult”, he said.

Try, try to imagine what would happen if the government ordered an autopsy of this woman, the object of the reverence of millions, against the wishes of her family, and against the opposition of her supporters, who have already burned down hundreds of establishments and killed dozens in their rage.

What a victims family or spouse wants concerning a postmortem is irrelevant in a murder case according to Pakistani law. An autopsy was required regardless of what Benazir’s husband wished. The approval of the police was all that was needed. And this was denied.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/30/asia/pakistan.php:
“The team of doctors who frantically tried to revive her Thursday said they had requested an autopsy but were rebuffed by the chief of police in Rawalpindi, according to a member of the board of the hospital where she was treated.”

This has been repeatedly confirmed, so your claim that the government wanted an autopsy is absolutely false I’m afraid.

more “creative destruction”, seeing as how iran’s on the back burner for a while, and a new “new pearl harbor” is too risky.

Yes, but it was Benazir’s husband who did the forbidding — not the Pakistani goverment. The government wanted an autopsy.

> jammers that stop belt bombs from going off

There’s no such thing. Jammers can’t stop belt bombs.

> ISI might be playing a more complex game

This is something that almost everybody gets wrong — they think ISI has a ‘personality’ or agenda of its own. But ISI’s officers and leaders are temporaries on loan from other military corps. They serve two- or three-year terms in the ISI and then they go back to their corps. (This arrangement was supposed to reduce the likelihood of abuse of power by a powerful organization — but it was suspended during the anti-Soviet struggle in the 1980s, and later reinstated.)

Benazir Bhutto’s tainted widower Asif Ali Zadari reemerges as kingmaker.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3118772.ece

Bhutto was also accused of corruption, allegedly taking millions of Pakistan’s money for herself, and her husband spent 8 years in gaol for similar charges.

Of course this doesn’t mean she deserved to die, but the voices calling her an Angel should reconsider.

Perhaps some of the other members of the 700,000 member Bhutto tribe, many with reason to hate her, were involved in the assassination.

Read this about uncle Mumtaz and Benmny husband, still in prison for corruption:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3118974.ece

Inside job by the police, thats easy.

Zardari and Benazir brutally had Benazir’s brother killed.
See:http://www.despardes.com/articles/2007/20070920-fatima-bhutto.htm

Murtaza Bhutto’s Murder

Meanwhile Pakistan was a major killing zone during her government.
See:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport.php?id=276B43BFD86CA15880256A0F005BEBD0&c=PAK
AI REPORT 1997: PAKISTAN

By the way, where is Benazir’s sister Sanam? She a tad too quiet when she is heir of father’s party (this being a hereditary party after all)not Benazir’s criminal husband or naive son?