Sri Lanka is seeking foreign forensic help to establish whether a female suicide bomber who tried to kill the country's army chief was indeed pregnant as she claimed, investigators said on Saturday.
Tests by local laboratories proved negative and investigators are now trying to secure the help of forensic experts abroad, a doctor close to the investigation said.
"We have no medical records to prove that she was in fact pregnant although she gained entry to the army hospital saying she was pregnant," the doctor said. The hospital is located within the military headquarters compound.
Logs at the army headquarters showed the bomber entered the military compound posing as a soldier's pregnant wife to take advantage of "maternity day" at the army hospital, police have said.
She had visited the hospital on several occasions.
Investigators believe the 21-year-old woman who carried out the April 25 attack inside the tightly guarded army headquarters had an accomplice who guided her by mobile telephone, police said.
The woman was blown to pieces and only her left leg below the knee was left intact. Investigators found her badly bruised head hanging by her hair in a tree.
{{/usCountry}}The woman was blown to pieces and only her left leg below the knee was left intact. Investigators found her badly bruised head hanging by her hair in a tree.
{{/usCountry}}Police said her mobile phone was also destroyed but they managed to recover the SIM card, which has been sent abroad for analysis to track down the list of calls she made and received just before the attack.
Army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka and 30 others were wounded in the attack while a total of 11 people, including the bomber, died in the blast.