Pakistan probes former lawmaker for Pole's beheading

Jul 26, 2009, 11:40 GMT

Islamabad - Pakistani police on Sunday said investigators were quizzing a former pro-Taliban lawmaker believed at the centre of the slaying of a Polish engineer by militants earlier this year.

Shah Abdul Aziz, who belongs to a right-wing Islamist party and has links with the Taliban, was remanded in custody on Saturday.

'He (Aziz) is suspected of ordering the beheading of Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak,' police officer Mahmood Khan said.

The former parliamentarian had been missing since May, with aides alleging that he had been picked up by intelligence agents.

Aziz's whereabouts remained unknown until Saturday when he was produced in a special court in the garrison town of Rawalpindi along with another suspect, who had already been under detention since July 16.

Taliban militant Attaullah Khan confessed before the court that he and some other militants had kidnapped Stanczak and later killed him on the orders of Aziz.

Stanczak was abducted in September 2008 from the district of Attock, located near the insurgency-hit north-western region. In February the militants released a video showing his beheading.

Aziz was allegedly negotiating between the abductors and the authorities, and he ordered the killing when the Pakistani government refused to release 60 militants in return for the Pole.

The court will again hear the case on Tuesday.

Pakistan's north-western region has seen several attacks on foreigners, including diplomats, during the recent spate of Taliban violence.

Troops are battling Islamist militants in the former tourist resort of Swat since early May, while clashes are regularly taking place in the tribal region on the Afghan border.

The military said on Sunday that over the last 24 hours, security forces killed one militant and arrested 10 others in different areas of Swat, where the offensive, they said, was in its final stages.

More than 1,700 fighters have been reported killed, but the toll lacks independent confirmation.

Separately, two soldiers died when they were hit by a homemade bomb in the Sarkari Qila area of the Bajaur tribal district, the military said on Sunday.

Ongoing offensives against Islamist militants are being widely supported in Pakistan, in addition to drawing praise from the United States which had also stepped up its operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan.