Body of man who died in German custody arrives in Pakistan

May 13, 2006, 15:46 GMT

Islamabad - The remains of 28-year-old Pakistani Amir Cheema, who died in German police custody, were buried in his ancestral village in Pakistan's central Punjab province Saturday, locals and reports said.

Cheema's body was earlier airlifted by helicopter to Saroki near Wazirabad city amid very tight security arrangements at Lahore airport, Pakistan's private Geo TV quoted officials as saying.

The body had arrived in Lahore from Berlin Saturday morning.

'Over 15,000 people including Cheema's family members, friends, relatives and activists of different Islamic groupings representing Sunni Muslims attended the funeral rites and later placed floral wreaths on the grave,' Imran Rasool, a resident of Saroki village, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

He said mourners wailed while Cheema's body was lowered into the grave Saturday afternoon. However, no untoward incident was reported, as the funeral procession remained peaceful.

'But mourners raised slogans against the government for its failure to protect the lives of its citizens in Pakistan and abroad', Rasool said.

Cheema's body was sent to Lahore directly from Berlin instead of allowing it to be flown to Rawalpindi, where Islamists had planned big protest rallies for Saturday.

Cheema died early this month in German police custody in Berlin, which sparked protests in Pakistan.

Even on Friday, hundreds of Islamists took to the streets in Islamabad to protest his death and demanded Pakistan's government expel Germany's ambassador and announce an economic boycott of Berlin to protest at what they called Cheema's murder at the hands of the German police.

Two senior Pakistani investigators conducted inquiries in Berlin Thursday into Cheema's death in police custody.

One of Germany's top pathologists, Volkmar Schneider, performed the autopsy last Wednesday and found that the injuries were consistent with suicide. There was no evidence whatever of anyone else hurting Cheema, a prosecution spokesman said.

A resident of Rawalpindi, Cheema was arrested in Berlin on March 20 after he reportedly tried to enter the offices of the German newspaper Die Welt.

He was accused of trying to kill Die Welt's editor-in-chief Roger Koeppel because the newspaper had printed caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

German police said they had also recovered a knife from Cheema, who was a student of textile engineering in Moenchengladbach and had gone to Berlin to see relatives.

Police say Cheema hanged himself with a noose made from his own clothing.