Bhutto's Doctors Gagged

It's becoming increasingly difficult not to suspect the Pakistani military of playing a role in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. First there is the video showing the ease with which the gunman and suicide bomber were able to close on Bhutto's vehicle. Where was the security she required? Nowhere to be seen. Then there is the report that just hours after her death Bhutto had been scheduled to meet with Senator Arlen Spector and Congressman Kennedy to hand over evidence purported to show that her country's Inter-Service Intelligence agency was working to rig the elections.

Now it's reported by the Washington Post that the doctors who attended Bhutto after the blast have been gagged:

In interviews, doctors who were at Bhutto's side at Rawalpindi General Hospital said they were under extreme pressure not to share details about the nature of the injuries that the opposition leader suffered in an attack here Dec. 27.

"The government took all the medical records right after Ms. Bhutto's time of death was read out," said a visibly shaken doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Sweating and putting his head in his hands, he said: "Look, we have been told by the government to stop talking. And a lot of us feel this is a disgrace."

The truth is, there really is no investigation at all," said Babar Awan, a top official in Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party who said he saw Bhutto's body after the attack and identified two clearly defined bullet wounds -- entry and exit points.

He said that the principal professor of surgery at the hospital, Muhammad Mussadiq Khan, was "extremely nervous, but eventually told me that Bhutto had died of a bullet wound."

"Why was this man so nervous?" Awan said. "He told me firsthand he was under pressure not to talk about how she died."

The video of the assassination clearly shows Bhutto being shot with her headscarf and hair blown to the side opposite the gunman - before the bomb was triggered.