ISLAMABAD (AFP) — The Pakistani detective who solved the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl has joined the probe into the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, officials said.
Zubair Mahmood will work with a team of British detectives investigating the December 27 assassination of Bhutto, which plunged Pakistan into turmoil and forced the postponement of key elections, they said.
"He has joined the investigation and will coordinate with the Scotland Yard team," a senior government official told AFP.
An interior ministry official said the detective's experience in handling high-profile cases would be invaluable.
Pearl, an American journalist, was kidnapped in the southern port city of Karachi in January 2002 and beheaded by Al-Qaeda number three Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Zubair, director of the Federal Investigation Agency in Karachi, was the lead investigator credited with unearthing the gang of Islamic militants who planned and carried out the gruesome killing of the reporter.
He was also sent to the West Indies last year to assist Jamaican police investigating the death of Pakistan cricket team coach Bob Woolmer.
"Zubair, who is joining the investigation team, is a vastly experienced police officer," interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema told AFP.
Zubair's role in the Pearl murder probe featured heavily in the 2007 film "A Mighty Heart," based on the book of the same name by Mariane Pearl, the journalist's widow.
President Pervez Musharraf invited Scotland Yard to help with the investigation amid widespread disbelief at the authorities' initial findings on Bhutto's cause of death and their shambolic efforts at gathering evidence.
Bhutto's supporters have accused the government of failing to protect the head of Pakistan's most powerful political dynasty after a suicide bombing attempt on her life in October.
They have called for an independent UN-led probe into the murder but Musharraf, who met the Scotland Yard team on Tuesday, has ruled out any further foreign involvement in the inquiry.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack and the man believed to have shot Bhutto died in the bomb blast.
Bhutto's assassination triggered riots that left at least 58 people dead and forced general elections to be delayed by almost six weeks until February 18.
The government has blamed a local Al-Qaeda leader but he has denied any role in the killing.
Musharraf has since backed away from the interior ministry's initial assessment that the two-time prime minister died from hitting her head against her car sunroof due to the shockwave from the bomb blast.
Aides from her political party who were with her at the time insist she was killed by a shot to the head from a gunman who was seen firing at least three rounds from close range as Bhutto waved to supporters through her car sunroof.
The confusion has fuelled suspicions among Bhutto loyalists that the government is trying to cover up what it knows about the murder, after Bhutto had publicly accused senior officials of plotting to kill her.
The British detectives, who arrived last week, inspected the crime scene and Bhutto's car over the weekend but they have made no statements to the media.
Much of the evidence is believed to have been destroyed in the hours after the attack when officials hosed down the crime scene, and no autopsy of Bhutto's body was carried out due to her family's objections.
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