Report: Bhutto death claim backtracked

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Pakistan's official declaration that Benazir Bhutto died of skull fracture seemed to change Tuesday as a videotape showed she may have been struck by bullets.

The interior ministry, which had claimed the former prime minister died after hitting her head on a sun roof latch, said Tuesday it will await forensic results before making a conclusion on the cause of death, CNN reported.

The report said several national newspapers carried a government offer of $81,400 to anyone identifying the two suspects seen in a videotape. The videotape of Bhutto's assassination showed her slumping just after gunshots rang out, indicating she was hit by bullets. Bhutto was killed Dec. 27 at a political rally in Rawalpindi.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told CNN his earlier statement was based "on the initial investigations and the reports by the medical doctors" at the Rawalpindi General Hospital where Bhutto was pronounced dead.

"I was just narrating the facts, you know, and nothing less nothing more," Cheema said.

A ministry news release said, "There's no intention to conceal anything from the people of Pakistan."

Earlier, Athar Minallah, a lawyer on the hospital board, told CNN hospital doctors did not make the statements attributed to them by the government.

Prior to the sunroof latch explanation, the interior ministry had blamed a bullet or shrapnel wound as the cause of Bhutto's cause of death.

An autopsy on Bhutto was not permitted. The Rawalpindi police chief told CNN he had suggested one but the family objected. The family has said it does not trust the government.