Rob Crilly: Who dares pursue truth while security services hold reins?

Just like her father, Benazir Bhutto lived for politics and died for her cause.

She had been back in the country for only a matter of weeks after striking a deal with the government of General Pervez Musharraf, striking out corruption charges and ending her self-imposed exile.

She survived one attempt on her life on the night she returned. Two explosions killed 149 people, according to the official toll.

Three months later she was dead, killed in a suicide attack as she left an election rally in the army city of Rawalpindi.

The assassination of this glamorous icon of Pakistani politics created shockwaves that are still being felt today.

Back then, the government of Gen Musharraf was quick to apportion blame.

At a press conference the following day, a spokesman for the ministry of the interior announced that telephone intercepts clearly implicated Baitullah Mehsud, who was then head of the Pakistan Taleban.

But the briefing said nothing about the other questions that have swirled through Pakistan ever since.

Ms Bhutto herself said she had expected to be targeted by figures within Pakistan's establishment drawn from the military and intelligence worlds. Most of all, she said she feared Gen Musharraf himself.

A shoddy police investigation – deliberately hampered by senior figures, according to yesterday's report – failed to dispel a growing number of conspiracy theories.

Was there more than one attacker? And was Ms Bhutto killed by a bullet, or by banging her head as she ducked back inside the vehicle?

We may never get the answers.

Police hosed down the crime scene within two hours of the attack, destroying or dispersing crucial clues. Evidence such as the dupatta, or scarf, worn by Ms Bhutoo went missing.

And investigating officers were waylaid with long lunches and afternoon tea, so it took fully 48 hours for the real business of gathering intelligence to begin. Often the officers in the case simply went through the motions, apparently nervous of falling foul of their superiors if they investigated a touch too thoroughly.

Someone, the report makes clear, was pulling the strings. But who and why?

With so many details still unclear, the questions are left hanging in the air. The government insists it has investigated properly, but many of Ms Bhutto's supporters believe her enemies in the powerful intelligence agencies must have played a part.

It is that sort of country – a land where political intrigue and complicated conspiracies are the currency of debate.

Yesterday's report was supposed to put an end to all of that.

But it was also never designed to point the finger of blame. President Asif Ali Zardari, Ms Bhutto's widower, called in the United Nations to investigate the circumstances surrounding the assassination of a political icon and sort some of the facts from the fiction.

Its conclusions are supposed to feed into a Pakistani investigation launched in October last year.

Yet it all raises more questions than it answers, particularly about which officials gave the orders to stymie previous investigations.

In particular, who were the senior government officials which the UN team said prevented access to military and intelligence sources?

The biggest question, however, is whether President Zardari now has the stomach to order a fresh and independent inquiry with the muscle to shine a spotlight on the murky world of the security forces, which still hold the reins of power.

Or with his own economic and political concerns – not to mention the threat of a corruption prosecution being re-opened – will he instead try to let the whole thing simply be forgotten?

Rob Crilly is The Scotsman's correspondent in Islamabad.