Police Stopped Bhutto Autopsy: Hospital Rep

The Rawalpindi police chief prevented doctors from performing an autopsy on Benazir Bhutto, according to an open letter issued today by a representative of the hospital where she died. Chief Aziz Saud invoked the investigators' “exclusive responsibility,” CNN reports, but Saud says Bhutto's husband objected. The lack of an autopsy allows leeway for the government's widely maligned claim that Bhutto died of a skull fracture.

A video released yesterday shows her slumping as shots rang out, casting doubt on the government's claim—from which the hospital rep said he wished to distance the hospital: "[The doctors] are government servants who cannot speak—I am not." The rep contends that doctors were "threatened." (More Benazir Bhutto stories.)