ISLAMABAD — The Scotland Yard team investigating the death of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto concluded she was killed by the force of a suicide bomb and not by a bullet.

In the report that was presented to the Interior Ministry, Scotland Yard said a lone assassin shot at Benazir as she waved to supporters at an election rally in Rawalpindi on Dec. 27 but he missed and then detonated explosives that fatally smashed her skull against her car.

“The blast caused a violent collision between her head and the escape hatch area of the vehicle, causing a severe and fatal head injury,” added the summary, signed by British Detective Superintendent John MacBrayne, that was released yesterday.

However, Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) immediately rejected the findings, insisting that the two-time former premier was slain by a bullet and reiterated calls for a United Nations inquiry into her murder.

Benazir’s aides, including PPP Information Secretary Sherry Rehman, earlier said they saw bullet wounds as they bathed her corpse before burial.

“The party is still looking at the Scotland Yard report, however, it is difficult to agree with its findings on the cause of death,” Rehman told AFP. “We do believe that she was killed by an assassin’s bullet.”

Rehman said Scotland Yard was hampered because the officers were working under Pakistani police and its inquiry was limited to the cause of death and not the network behind the attack.

The British team admitted its task was complicated by the “lack of an extended and detailed search of the crime scene, the absence of an autopsy and the absence of recognized body recovery and victim-identification processes.”

But it added that there was sufficient evidence to draw “reliable conclusions,” including X-rays checked against Benazir’s dental records and video footage taken by witnesses.

“The only tenable cause for the rapidly fatal head injury in this case is that it occurred as the result of impact due to the effects of the bomb blast,” Scotland Yard quoted British government pathologist Nathaniel Cary as saying.

President Pervez Musharraf, who invited the British investigators to Pakistan in January in a bid to end uncertainty over the killing, recently admitted it was possible that Benazir was shot.

The government, however, says that her family’s refusal to allow an autopsy made it more difficult to establish the cause of death.

The Pakistani government said it was thankful to the British government and police for their “dedicated professionalism.”

“Now the focus of the investigation is on catching the culprits behind the assassination of Benazir, which grieved the entire nation,” Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema said.

The Scotland Yard report is, however, unlikely to make much difference to the ongoing debate about who was to blame.

Nonetheless, Pakistani police welcomed the findings. Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, who is heading the Pakistani police team investigating Benazir’s assassination, said it agreed with the Scotland Yard findings, adding that the attacker fired at Benazir but missed.

— With input from agencies