The Scotland Yard sleuths probing Benazir Bhutto's assassination on Saturday scoured the site where the former premier was attacked on December 27 but faced an uphill task as vital forensic evidence has already been destroyed.

The five-member team from the Metropolitan Police's Counter-Terrorism Command went to Liaquat Bagh, the historic ground in Rawalpindi where Bhutto addressed her final rally, and conducted a thorough inspection of the exact spot where she was attacked.

Police commandos set up a cordon and prevented the media and people from going near the Bagh as the British team spent a couple of hours making a thorough examination of the site.

They also went to the rooftops of buildings surrounding the ground and took photographs.

The team was accompanied by Rawalpindi's police chief Saud Aziz. Pakistani officials said the team would draw on their visit to reconstruct the crime scene.

The British team also visited Rawalpindi General Hospital, where Bhutto was rushed after the attack, and spoke to the doctors who tried to save her.

However, analysts said the British team would face difficulties because of the lack of forensic evidence. The police had not cordoned off the assassination site, which has become almost a public memorial for Bhutto.

The area was also washed within hours of the killing, an act that has been criticised by even president Pervez Musharraf [Images].

Analysts said the team would also face difficulties because no autopsy was conducted on Bhutto's body at the request of her husband Asif Ali Zardari.

The government has offered to exhume the body, but her family appears reluctant to allow this.

On Friday night, the team examined the armoured Toyota Land Cruiser in which Bhutto was travelling when she was attacked by a gunman and a suicide bomber.

Coverage: Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

The British investigators took photographs of Bhutto's armoured vehicle, especially of the damage caused by splinters from the suicide bomber's explosive device, at the police lines in Rawalpindi, said district nazim Raja Javed Ikhlas.

The vehicle has been impounded by police and declared 'case property'. The team is also expected to record statements of some persons who were injured in the suicide attack.

British High Commission spokesman Aidan Liddle said the Scotland Yard team will be 'part of the Pakistani probe' and will not function independently.

"The five experts from the Counter-Terrorism Command will offer support and expertise, mainly forensic expertise," Liddle told PTI.

Though the team's deployment in Pakistan is 'not open-ended', British authorities have not set any timeframe for how long the investigators would remain in the country, Liddle said.

The British team was also briefed on Friday by Pakistani police detectives and officials of the Special Investigation Group, the anti-terror wing of the Federal Investigation Agency, on the status of the investigations by Pakistani authorities.

The Pakistan government has said it will give 'complete freedom' to the British team to conduct its investigation.

Caretaker home minister Hamid Nawaz Khan said, "We will let them work as they want to work. They will not have to share their investigation with us. We will give them all the help they need. They can help us in forensics and reconstructing the scene of the crime," Khan said last night.

Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party has already rejected the government decision to get the assassination probed by the British police.

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