Probe concludes blast killed Bhutto

? Scotland Yard investigators have concluded that Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed by the impact of a suicide bomb blast, not gunfire, according to a report released Friday.

The much-anticipated report concurred with the Pakistani government’s earlier assertion that a head injury Bhutto sustained in the blast had caused her death. However, contrary to earlier speculation that two men carried out the Dec. 27 attack, the British-led inquiry concluded that there was only one assassin.

“The inevitable conclusion is that there was one attacker in the immediate vicinity of the vehicle in which Ms. Bhutto was traveling,” said the report, which was released a day after thousands of Bhutto’s supporters converged on her burial site to mark the end of a 40-day mourning period.

Members of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, immediately condemned the findings, insisting that she had been shot to death. They also renewed calls for the United Nations to launch a separate investigation into her assassination.

“It is not material what caused her death. What is material is to identify the perpetrators who caused her death,” said Farhatullah Babar, a PPP spokesman.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has rejected the idea of U.N. intervention, saying his government would rely solely on the Scotland Yard inquiry. Government officials on Friday reiterated their confidence in the British agency’s findings.

“We are relying on Scotland Yard. They have given a categorical and definite report,” said Chaudhry Abdul Majid, head of the Pakistani police division that conducted its own investigation.