Name of Assassin:Although the name of the true assassin is unknown, dramatic photographs
and a video show the suspected assassin to be a young Pakistani man in his early twenties. He was clean-shaven,
wearing sunglasses, and dressed in a black tie and waistcoat. He was seen pulling out a pistol and firing it
at Bhutto from behind at close range. Two gun shots were heard right before the suicide bomb.
Victim:Benazir Bhutto
Place of Assassination: At a election rally in Rawalpindi's Liaqat Bagh Park
When: December 27, 2007
How:There are many speculations of how Bhutto was killed. It was either a bullet wound in the head,
shrapnel from the suicide bomb or Bhutto violently hit her head on a metal lever from her vehicle
Why:If Prime Minister Musharraf was behind the assassination, it would explain the death of his most
powerful opponent just 12 days before elections. Otherwise, the assassination could be a result from
people who were against democracy or her corruption allegations.
Two months after her return from exile, a gunman fired several shots at Bhutto
as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi. Seconds later, flames from a suicide bomb engulfed her bulletproof
car and killed 20 PPP (Pakastani Political Party)supporters. The former prime minister was rushed to the
Rawalpindi hospital where distraught supporters burst through doors, smashed windows and tried to storm into
the operating theatre where surgeons struggled to save her life.
She was pronounced dead shortly afterwards. Supporters wept and crumpled to the ground outside the hospital. Cries of
"Musharraf is a murderer" and "Long Live Bhutto" rang out. Bhutto's body was placed in a plain wooden coffin and was
flown to her home province of Sindh accompanied by her husband Asif Zardari and their three children.
She was buried near her ancestral village in Larkana.
The initial suspicions for the attack were Islamist militants
who had previously threatened to kill the 54-year-old former prime minister. There were
unconfirmed reports that al-Qaida had claimed responsibility on an Islamist website.
In October, Bhutto survived a suicide attack on her homecoming parade in Karachi that killed 140.
Dramatic new photographs taken seconds before the murder of Benazir Bhutto cast serious doubt on
the Pakistan government's official account of the death of the former prime minister. The three
photographs first published by Pakistan's Dawn News appear to reveal Ms Bhutto's assassin advancing
towards her vehicle, drawing out a pistol, and firing it at close range as the handful of security
personnel duck for cover. Citing medical reports, it says she was killed when a blast
set off by a suicide bomber smashed her head into a lever on the sunroof of her bullet-proof vehicle
as she ducked down. Bhutto's opposition PPP party dismissed the Interior Ministry's account as lies.
In the latest images, the gunman is captured looking towards the camera with another man suspected to be a suicide bomber
standing behind him with a scarf across his face. The second photograph shows the suspected assassin
raising his pistol in the direction of Ms Bhutto's vehicle. The final image shows Ms Bhutto's supporters
and security personnel lowering their heads in reaction to the gun shots. According to experts, the
photographs taken by an amateur appear to confirm the PPP's version of events. Ms Bhutto's party has
said that she died after being shot in the head and the neck, just before a suicide bomber killed himself
and the PPP supporters. Javed Iqbal Cheema, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, has claimed
that Ms Bhutto had died after slamming her head against the sunroof after climbing out to wave at crowds
while leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi. Sherry Rehman, the PPP's information secretary, dismissed
Mr Cheema's account as "dangerous nonsense". Ms Rehman was in the car when Ms Bhutto died and when her
body was bathed before burial. She claimed that there was a bullet wound at the back of Bhutto's head on the
left side which came out on the other side.
The assassination of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto caused violent convulsions across the country and postponed the elections. Angry scenes erupted in cities across the country, where enraged supporters torched businesses and trains, attacked police and blocked roads with burning tyres. Gunfire rang out on the streets of Karachi, the port city where Bhutto spent much of her life.