The controversy over the cause of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s death has deepened with the airing by a Pakistani TV channel of photographs that apparently showed an armed youth shooting her as she stood at the sun-roof of her bulletproof vehicle.

Dawn News channel aired four grainy photos it obtained from an amateur photographer, including one that it said showed the suspected shooter and the suspected suicide bomber involved in the assassination of Bhutto in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

Two photos showed the shooter — a clean-shaven youth wearing a white shirt, dark waistcoat and dark glasses — aiming a pistol at Bhutto’s back while she waved through the sun-roof of her car to her supporters. The suspected suicide bomber was a man who had a white cloth wrapped around his face.

The shooter was a few metres from Bhutto and was standing to the left of her vehicle. Bhutto had emerged through the sun-roof to acknowledge the cheers of her supporters.

Dawn News said the fourth photo, taken after the shots were fired and before the suicide bomber detonated his explosives, apparently showed that Bhutto was no longer standing at the sun-roof.

The position of the youth with the pistol in the photo coincided with the position of the shooter seen in video footage of the attack on Bhutto released by the interior ministry on Friday.

In that footage, the face of the shooter is obscured but his hand can be seen holding a pistol that is used to fire three to four shots towards Bhutto. In the video too, Bhutto had her back towards the shooter.

Sherry Rehman, a close aide of Bhutto, has said the former premier died after being hit in the head by a bullet.

Rehman also dismissed as “absolute nonsense” the interior ministry’s contention that Bhutto had hit her head against a metal lever on the sun-roof due to the force of the blast, and died after fracturing her skull.

Getty Images photographer John Moore, who shot images of Bhutto moments before her assassination, also told CNN that “she went down through the sunroof” after the shots were fired.

“And then suddenly, there were a few gunshots that rang out, and she went down, she went down through the sunroof,” he said. “And just at that moment I raised my camera up and the blast happened...And then, of course, there was chaos.”

Moore said he was about 20 yards away from Bhutto’s vehicle when he took his photographs. “Whoever planned this attack, they had time on their hands to plan everything properly, and you saw the results,” he said.

He said it was obvious that Bhutto enjoyed being with her supporters. “She just wanted to get close to the people, and obviously whoever was after her, they saw that coming,” Moore said.