ISLAMABAD, Jan 4: A team of five detectives of the Scotland Yard arrived here on Friday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brig (retd) Javed Iqbal Cheema told Dawn that the team would assist the Pakistani officials probing the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

He said the British investigators comprising forensic and technical experts met a team of local detectives of police and the Special Investigation Group of Federal Investigation Agency who had already started the probe.

“We do not know how long the Scotland Yard team will stay here because there is no timeframe for them to complete the task,” he said.

The foreign experts were briefed on the evidences available with the Pakistani police and the investigation carried out so far, a security source said.

The British team also examined Ms Bhutto’s bullet-proof vehicle which had been impounded and was declared a ‘case property’.

The Scotland Yard team is expected to record statements of some of the people injured in the attack.

Analysts here said that the Scotland Yard team would face difficulty because of lack of evidence. They said police had not cordoned off the assassination site and had washed it immediately after the incident.

The team would also face difficulties because no post-mortem of Ms Bhutto had been conducted. The government has offered to exhume the body, but her family seems to be reluctant to allow it.

It is feared that due to lack of solid evidences the British team may not come up with any definitive conclusion and it will have to rely on the information provided by the local investigators.

Ms Bhutto had said two months before her assassination that her enemies in the government and intelligence agencies were planning to kill her and had demanded adequate security.

The Pakistan People’s Party has already rejected the government decision to get the investigation conducted by the British police.

“We will accept investigation of the tragic incident by international experts only if it is conducted under the auspices of the United Nations,” PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said.

It is not the first time that a Scotland Yard team has come here to help probe a high-profile political assassination.

In 1951, Pakistan had sought British government’s help after the country’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was shot dead in Rawalpindi.

Many opposition leaders at that time had demanded investigation by foreign experts because they believed that some government officials were involved in the murder.

The government initially rejected the demand but later invited an expert from Scotland Yard. But for reasons never disclosed, the British investigator was asked to leave Pakistan only after a few weeks. The Pakistani authorities never revealed anything about the investigation.

In September 1996 when Murtaza Bhutto was killed, a similar demand was made to seek Scotland Yard’s help. A team from Britain had come to Pakistan but it was asked to leave before the probe was completed.