Posted on 12/30/2007 2:50:55 PM PST by bjs1779
30 Dec 2007 ISLAMABAD: The decision not to conduct an autopsy on slain ex-premier Benazir Bhutto's body was taken by the Rawalpindi police chief even though a medico-legal report based on a mandatory post-mortem examination is a must in a murder case under Pakistani laws.
"Even if the family of a murder victim refuses to allow the autopsy, no investigation can be completed if doctors do not perform the autopsy and conclusively find the cause of death," said Athar Minallah, a top lawyer and a member of the board of management of Rawalpindi General Hospital where Bhutto was taken after the attack on her on Thursday.
He said doctors, who treated Bhutto, had told him that they wanted to conduct the autopsy but the Rawalpindi Police chief had not agreed to this.
"The doctors were worried that their initial report, which did not determine the definite cause of death, is being politically twisted," he told The News .
Minallah's statement runs contrary to the contention of Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema, who had said on Friday that the autopsy was not done at the request of Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari.
Cheema said the doctors had performed only an "external post-mortem" using X-rays while Minallah argued that avoiding the mandatory autopsy on the body of Bhutto "was a violation of the Criminal Procedure Code."
No, I don't. It's when you get the big V on your chest with loose stitches. Plus some buzz saw marks around your head.
Both Ron Brown and Vince Foster were never declared by our government to have been assassinated. The same is not the case with Bhutto.
So what's the caper?
No, I don't. It's when you get the big V on your chest with loose stitches. Plus some buzz saw marks around your head.
You're right, you don't.
Got a source for your remarks about autopsies under suspicous deaths? That should be easy to find.
As pressure increased on Pakistan to accept an international inquiry into Ms. Bhuttos death, 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.
The question of an autopsy has become central to the circumstances of Ms. Bhuttos death because of conflicting versions put forward by the Pakistani government of how she died.
On the night Ms. Bhutto died, an unnamed Interior Ministry spokesman was quoted by the official Pakistani news agency as saying that the former prime minister had died of a bullet wound in the neck by a suicide bomber.
The next day, Javed Iqbal Cheema, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said at a news conference that Ms. Bhutto had died of a wound suffered when she hit her head on a lever attached to the sunroof of the vehicle that was carrying her through a crowd after a political rally. Three shots were fired, but they missed her, Mr. Cheema said. Then there was an explosion.
The explanation was greeted with disbelief by Ms. Bhuttos supporters, ordinary Pakistanis and medical experts outside the government.
Pakistani and Western security experts said they believed the governments insistence that Ms. Bhutto was not killed by a bullet was designed to deflect attention from the lack of government security around her vehicle as she left the park in the city where the Pakistani Army keeps its headquarters, and where the powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency has a strong presence, Pakistani and Western security experts said.
True. But they did have the pretense of an autopsy. Somehow, you seem to argue backwards. Bluttto did not have an autopsy, correct? And you seem to be comfortable without one.
Thanks. It can get time consuming with the demands that they place on one poster.
In the open letter that Mr. Minallah distributed along with the medical report to the Pakistani news media and to The New York Times, Mr. Minallah suggested the doctors felt they were being pressured by the government to back the theory that she had died by hitting her head on the lever of the cars sunroof.But the doctors had stressed to him that without an autopsy it is not at all possible to determine as to what had caused the injury, Mr. Minallah wrote in his open letter.
The chief of police in Rawalpindi, Aziz Saud, did not agree to the autopsy request by the doctors, Mr. Minallah added.
Hard to believe that a little old police chief has the power to quash an autopsy of a major political figure. I am sure some here will tell us otherwise. Thanks again.
Somehow, you seem to argue backwards. Bluttto did not have an autopsy, correct? And you seem to be comfortable without one.
No, somehow you seem not to get it. What part of my above (in bold) comment are you having difficulty with?
Perhaps I can expound on it further for you.
Meanwhile I still await the quote that you said you were going to supply which shows that the Paki government said that they didn't do an autopsy.
Three words? Not even a full sentence? What an absolutely pathetic quote.
Maybe the chief of police "did not agree" that a full V section cut of the entire body was needed since all she had was a head wound.
Do me favor, show me where the Pakistan government did do an autopsy. You are not up to date my friend. No autopsy was done.
We had boots on the ground there if they needed help. - Tom
By WILL BUNCH Philadelphia Daily News
PENNSYLVANIA Sen. Arlen Specter was in a hotel room last night in Islamabad, where he'd traveled to meet the top leaders of Pakistan, including opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, whom he was supposed to have dinner with at 9 p.m. local time.
As the world now knows, Bhutto never made it.
Less than three hours before she was supposed to join the Philadelphian and his traveling companion, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., Bhutto was assassinated by an attacker who shot the former prime minister as she left a campaign rally, then blew himself up, killing at least 20 others.
For the rest of the world, it is clear that the Pakistani authorities chose not to do an autopsy prior to handing over Bhutto's body to the family - for whatever reason.
That is correct. Let them state otherwise.
Actually I've come to no conclusions about who killed Bhutto. It could have been Musharraf or more likely it could have been Al Qaeda.
You Saberwielder on the other hand apparently take the same side as The New York Times, The Times of India, Hillary Clinton and Al Qaeda on this as you now defend and spread the same propaganda that they spread.
What a joke. Where do you get your propaganda from?
I don't. but I know where you get yours.
Does this mean that you are not quite all there?
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