[JURIST] Doctors at Rawalpindi General Hospital were prevented by police from carrying out an autopsy on former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [BBC obituary; JURIST news archive] following her assassination [JURIST report] last week, a hospital lawyer said Monday, according to CNN. Hospital manager Athar Minallah said that police violated Pakistani criminal law by preventing doctors from reaching a full medical conclusion about Bhutto's cause of death [medical report, PDF], but Rawalpindi police chief Aziz Saud told CNN that it was Bhutto's husband rather than police that objected to the autopsy. CNN has more.

Bhutto's husband Sunday called for an international investigation [JURIST report] into her killing similar to the ongoing UN investigation into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive]. Bhutto was assassinated Thursday at a political rally in Rawalpindi. She was campaigning in the lead-up to January 8 parliamentary elections.